Onofrio Tomaselli, I carusi, 1905 ca, oil on canvas
In the section of the Gallery dedicated to Verismo, an exceptional place is occupied by the work of Onofrio Tomaselli, a pupil of Morelli. His monumental work, I carusi, is a painting, painful and harsh even in the parched chromatic selection, which manifests the artist’s existential vision. The image of the curved silhouettes and the defeated expression of the portrayed children denounce the condition of struggle for survival, well outlined in the preface to I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga. There is also that dramatic condition of the yellow tuff Sicilian hinterland, which in 1876 had been recounted, in all its crudeness, in the Investigation in Sicily by Leopoldo Franchetti and Sidney Sonnino, who were the first to reveal the features of that famous “question southern” that the government had begun to investigate.