Ludovico Magno

Ludovico Magnoex emplifies Walter Richard Sickert’s late style. Sickert’s unorthodox approach belied expectations: he seemed to delight in the unusual viewpoint, choosing not to show the dignity and grandeur of the “august site,” but instead to capture the urban ambience of the city against the backdrop of its faded past. In so doing, he created seemingly random images with characteristic detachment from his subject.

Yet in Ludovico Magno Sickert captured in elegant and fluid strokes the sculptural decoration of the arch itself. On its first exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery, critic Cyril Connolly lauded Ludovico Magno, finding it substantial and moving. He wrote: “The colours are light and airy except for the dark green Homburg in the foreground and a splash of crimson – the Sickert trademark – among the old clothes liturgically flapping their Sic transit.”