Paride Pascucci

Paride Pascucci, born in Manciano (Grosseto) in 1866, began his artistic career in 1882 when he was admitted to the Provincial Institute of Fine Arts in Siena.

In August 1886, he was called to military service in Padua, Treviso, and finally in Venice, where he returned to visit the Venice Biennale in 1897.

During this period, he discovered the Macchiaioli painters Lega, Signorini, and Fattori, who influenced his sketches of military life. Back in Siena to attend courses at the Institute, he supported his studies by giving drawing lessons and won the Biringucci scholarship in 1896 and 1899, proposed by professors Cesare Maccari and Alessandro Ceccarini, who appreciated his works despite their deviation from academic norms.

In 1901, Pascucci left the artistic environment of Siena and participated in the Exhibition of Fine Arts in Rome with nine watercolors.
On this occasion, he met several young artists, including Plinio Nomellini and Pio Collivadino, to whom he remained attached for many years, contributing to his cultural background, which in Rome had already been enriched by the social realism of Michetti and Mancini.

Returning to Manciano, Pascucci moved to live in the house of a working-class family, the Garbati, who introduced him to the world of laborers struggling against landowners.

The early 1900s brought his first national successes. For example, in August 1909, his painting "Gli Apostoli," presented at the Exhibition of Fine Arts in Rome, was purchased by the National Gallery of Modern Art (now in deposit at the Church of San Leonardo in Manciano).

Despite his growing popularity, the painter did not separate himself from Maremma. When his painter friend Antonio Mancini made his Roman studio available to him, Pascucci decided not to move to the capital. These were years of prolific and valuable artistic production (Meditation, The Shepherd, The Ascetic, Heroes of Maremma), including frescoes, which brought him national attention.

During the fascist period, despite the censorship imposed by the regime, Paride Pascucci did not abandon social themes, and in 1930, when he exhibited some of his finest works in Grosseto, he retired definitively to his own house built on the outskirts of Manciano, cutting off all ties with the official art world and dedicating his work to the themes of daily peasant and popular life.

The painting of these years became more intimate and contemplative, without giving up large-scale works: in 1939, he painted "The Siesta," now exhibited in the Council Chamber of Grosseto, and in 1940, he painted "Baldoria carnevalesca," which remained unfinished and exhibited in the Council Chamber of Manciano.

His last painting, probably, was "Macinatura di breccia presso Manciano " from the Bologna Buonsignori Collection in Siena.