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econstruction. Despite the director's eye for detail, his idiosyncratically bold, visual
articulation of the material results in a representation that is evidently an artistic evocation of
reality than a direct reflection of it.
Bertolucci's intention to privilege the lyrical form of the image over the socio­
political significance of its content can be found in many camera framings which appear to be
based on paintings rather than on more objective historical sources. The film contains visual
references to paintings originating from the period of Italian realism in general and to works
by Giovanni Segantini (1858-1899) and Giovanni Fartori (1825-1908) in particular. Segantini
and Fattori diffused within Italy their interpretations of the French realist movement's
increasingly politicized - and sensitive - themes.(l) Both French and Italian realism centre
on a technique which uses dark colours to define shapes, and a chiaroscuro effect to contrast
the foreground and background planes. A similar technique emerges in the mise-en-scene of
1900, and when certain sequences relate specifically to labourers working in the fields or in
the stables, the frame composition, particularly Bertolucci's use of colour and lighting,
evokes tableaux such as La raccolta delle patate/Tlie Harvesting of Potatoes (1890), Alia
Stanga/At the Bar (1886), Le due madri/The Two Mothers (1889) by Segantini, and // Riposo
(II Can-o Rosso)/The Rest(The Red Chariot) (1887), and Aratura/Ploughing by Fattori. In
addition, Fattori's depictions of military life, works such as // Campo Italiano dopo la
battaglia di Magenta/The Italian Field after the Magenta Battle (1861} are analogous with
Bertolucci's representation of the state cavalry in the sequence depicting the eviction of the
peasants, particularly with regard to the soldiers' diagonal positioning. On the subject of the
director s assimilation of artworks, Stefano Socci has also identified similarities from both
versions of Le dejeuner sur I 'herbe by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Eduard Manet in the scene
of the peasants' country fair (Socci, 1996: 60-61).
The aesthetic experience generated by this painterly reconstruction of landscapes and
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