The characteristic vertical shape of the old houses in the villages of Maremma suggests to the painter this evocative picture from his series of “Returns.” He goes back into his ancestral home and is overcome by the memories of people now gone still hovering around their earthly home.

As seen by an approaching traveller, the vision of Roccalbegna at evening, nestled at the foot of two steep rocky outcroppings, transforms the structure of the houses into geometric solids that oppose their rational, measured essence to the curved lines of the natural elements in a prolonged tension between opposites

The traveller wearing a broad-brimmed hat, which Granchi uses as a metaphor for himself as he journeys through life, sets out on a steep path that will lead him to discover a sleeping giant, an allusion to the natural and instinctive forces that, although imprisoned in the rules of good

In this landscape drawn from life, Granchi obtains his effect of the light at dusk by using a brown paper that softens and renders shadowy the bright colours of chalk pastels. The artist often made quick visual notes like this one to freeze emotions and sensations in order to rework

The visionary art of Andrea Granchi interprets lines from Giosuè Carducci’s poetry as he imagines a Maremma populated by relics of ancient civilizations, which appear in the light emanated by the adventurous traveller’s thirst for knowledge.