File:Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - Cascella, Lungo il Naviglio.jpg

There is a brief reference in the records of the Cariplo archives to correspondence dated 23 March 1929 (not found during these investigations) regarding the purchase of the works Along the Naviglio Canal in pastel and Entrance to the Portello in watercolour from the Galleria Pesaro in Milan.

The purchase took place on the occasion of the major exhibition of work by Michele Cascella and his father Basilio in February 1929, which documents the painter’s artistic evolution from his vast early repertoire of landscapes of the Abruzzo region to the depiction of urban views as a result of moving to Milan in the 1920s. Cascella quickly established himself on the Italian art scene through participation in the Venice Biennial (Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della città di Venezia) of 1924 with the Monastery of Guardiagrele. His first solo show at the Galleria Pesaro in 1925 then proved a great success and received a favourable review from Carlo Carrà.

This depiction of the canal on Via San Damiano, shortly before it was covered over and disappeared as a result of the work commenced in 1929, is one of a large number of views by the artist bearing witness to the rapid urban and social transformation of Milan, such as Via Orefici (private collection), Piazza del Duomo (Milan, Galleria d’Arte Moderna) and The Highway (present location unknown). Repeatedly portrayed in set, codified forms in paintings and photographs of the period, the subject is given a personal interpretation by Cascella with the inclusion of signs of modernization, including the lamppost, in the foreground and the electric cables running above the flows of pedestrians and cars on the embankment. The artist displays highly sophisticated technique in using the softness of pastel, which gives the outlines a blurred and indefinite quality, to capture the rarefied and melancholy atmosphere of the snow-clad setting, minutely studied from life in accordance with the artist’s customary working practice, where the emotive component is combined with close attention to reality.

The subject was addressed in numerous versions, including Via Saint Damiano (exhibited in the Mostra del Naviglio at the Palazzo della Permanente in the spring of 1929), which shows the same scene from the viewpoint, and Naviglio Grande (1924, Milan, Collection of the Province of Milan) in tempera and pastel, which was bought by the Province of Milan at the Galleria Pesaro show in February 1929, like the work in the Cariplo Collection.