Like Ferruccio Scattola (Venice 1873 – Roma, 1950) and, even more avowedly, Teodoro Wolf Ferrari, (Venice, 1878 – San Zenone degli Ezzelini, 1945), Guido Marussig also moved at ease between the Biennale, where he made his debut at the age of twenty, in 1906, and Ca' Pesaro, where he exhibited as early as 1908, even graphically designing its first manifesto.

He trained in a Mitteleuropean climate, between Trieste and Venice, where he attended the Accademia with Ettore Tito and Augusto Sezanne. His poetics was already well defined by 1907, when he was invited to exhibit Weeping Willow in the Biennale hall, dedicated to the Art of the Dream. This work, much appreciated by his contemporaries, was recently re-proposed to the public on the occasion of the exhibition dedicated to Klimt and Italian Art at the Mart in Rovereto (fig. 1).

In the wake of Mario de Maria (Bologna, 1852 - 1924) and parallel to Gennaro Favai (Venezia, 1879 – 1958), Marussig assimilated the culture of German Symbolism, softened in a decorative key. He is distinguished by compositions of exquisite execution, devoid of human figures, built on a close-up viewpoint and characterised by an extremely modern cut. His landscapes, very selected (and very rare), re-propose the chromatic cascades of Klimt's secessionism (fig. 2), to which is mixed with highly original formula certain Nabis synthetism, borrow from the painter's proximity to the Ca' Pesaro group, to Gino Rossi (Venice, 1884 – Treviso, 1947) and Umberto Moggioli (Trento, 1886 – Rome, 1919) in particular.

 

The Venetian season ended with the first maturity of the artist. He moved to Milan in 1916, successfully inserted himself into the reality of the city by taking part in some important exhibitions. In particular, in April 1917, he presented L'albero morto e l'edera (The Dead Tree and Ivy), to be identified in all likelihood with the work under consideration, at the Galleria Pesaro as part of the Tre Venezie exhibition. The syntheticism of Secessionist taste, mindful of the Capesarina season, is declined here in the terms of a highly refined decorativism, which did not escape the attentive eye of Margherita Sarfatti, who made express mention of it in her article in the “Pagine d'arte” (1917)

 

After his experience in Fiume alongside Gabriele D'Annunzio (who commissioned him to decorate the Vittoriale), Marussig was engaged in painting as well as in the decorative arts and architecture, areas in which he was fully involved in the climate of the Italian Novecento.