Pellizza da Volpedo's The Fourth Estate digitized in gigapixel by Haltadefinizione

For the first time, one of the icons of modern Italian art, the Fourth Estate by Giuseppe Pellizza da Vol pedo (Volpedo, 1868 - 1907), preserved at the Museum of the Twentieth Century in Milan, is being digitized in gigapixels. The work, a pictorial manifesto of the Italian proletariat and a symbol of workers’ social-political battles extolling the protection of rights and equality, represents from an artistic point of view the transition from late 19th-century Divisionism to modernity. The digitization operation was conducted by Haltadefinizione, the tech company of the Franco Cosimo Panini publishing house, which thus continues in its mission to popularize and enhance the Italian artistic heritage by digitizing well-known and lesser-known works.

The Fourth Estate has been added to Haltadefinizione’s archive of digital images. Painted in oil on canvas, the large-scale work (293 x 545 cm) is the end result of a ten-year creative process. Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo finished the Quarto Stato in 1901 after several unsatisfactory attempts, including Fiumana, the preparatory sketch made between 1895 and 1896, now preserved at the Pinacoteca di Brera and, moreover, already available on the Haltadefinizione website. After being acquired with a very high-resolution photographic technique, The Fourth Estate will be accessible in gigapixels and can then be enlarged countless times thanks to the multimedia viewer that will reveal in detail every single brushstroke.

“A work like The Fourth Estate is certainly a masterpiece of pointillism, but it is also an inspiring social manifesto of the noblest sentiments,” says Anna Maria Montaldo, former director of the Museo del Novecento. “The idea of being able to ’visit’ it in depth through digital reproduction is a fascinating experience that contributes to the knowledge of the painting and entices people to visit the Museo del Novecento.”

“We are excited to make one of the most important works in the collection of the Museo del Novecento usable on the Haltadefinizione portal. The very high definition makes it possible to appreciate the work in all its details,” says Luca Ponzio, founder of Haltadefinizione, “museums and digital archives are an immense resource for our museums, thanks to which they open up great possibilities for heritage enhancement and dissemination. Digitization is one of the main means to make art accessible to the public at any time and in any part of the world.”

Pellizza da Volpedo's The Fourth Estate digitized in gigapixel by Haltadefinizione

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