On the hills to Settignano

Telemaco Signorini's On the Hills to Settignano (1885) depicts the terraced hillsides above Florence toward Settignano — one of the most characteristic Tuscan hill landscapes, dominated by olive groves, cypress allées, and the stone farmhouses (case coloniche) that dot the slopes above the Arno valley. Signorini was the leading painter of the Macchiaioli movement — the Italian Impressionist-like group that had pioneered plein air painting in Italy from the 1860s. His Settignano hillside subject is a mature work that combines the movement's direct observation with his own refined sense of Tuscan landscape's particular beauty.

Signorini renders the Settignano hills with the macchia technique — rapid notation of light and dark masses that captures the essential visual impression without academic finish. The terraced olive groves, their grey-green foliage catching the Tuscan light, are handled with the systematic observation of the Macchiaioli approach. His palette is warm and Mediterranean — the specific ochres of Tuscan soil, the silver-green of olive trees, the warm stone of terracing and farmhouses — applied with the confident directness of his mature style.