Mention 19^th century European art and most people will immediately think of the Impressionists. Nor would they be mistaken; Paris was Europe's cultural hub at the time, and French artists were trendsetters.

However, they were not alone; there was artistic ferment throughout the Continent. From the 1850s to the turn of the century Tuscany had a flourishing group of painters known as the Macchiaioli, a name that literally translates as "the spotters" -- a disparaging reference to their use of dabs of color that they adopted as their name in a perverse display of contempt towards the critic. Though speaking of dabs again brings to mind the Impressionists, the Tuscans were already working in that direction before they became aware of their French contemporaries. The movement grew out of a nucleus of artists, many of whom had been active during the revolutionary uprisings of 1848, and who met at the Caffé Michelangelo; they felt that one could learn the craft of painting outside the formal academies, and that discussion in public forums was vital to the learning process. They also felt that it was very important to break out of the stultifying conventions of academic work and paint from life, for example country scenes, soldiers in the inglorious aftermath of battle or the drudgery of camp life, and everyday life -- the charcoal wagon, girls sewing, grandmothers rocking babies, or even a monk descending the stairs of his church and pausing to look into an open grave.

ACQUAIOLE LIVORNESI (1865) DIEGO MARTELLI A CASTIGLIONCELLO (1867)

In 1855 two of the group, Serafino De Tivoli and Francesco Saverio Altamura, visited the Universal Exposition of Paris, returning much smitten by what they had seen, and their report certainly influenced the others, as did Anatolio Demidoff's decision to open Villa San Donato and its contemporary art collection to the public in 1856 (the villa is alas no more). However, the Tuscans continued on their own path, as a group, working together to develop solutions to the problems they faced. For example, Crisitano Banti, Vincenzo Cabianca and Telemaco Signorini went repeatedly to Montemurlo and La Spezia to paint between 1858 and 1860; Banti and Cabianca, who were older and more experienced, were influenced by the zest that leapt from Signorini's canvases, while he learned from their control, and all three profited. Again as an example, Odoardo Borrani and Raffaello Sernesi went to San Marcello together in 1861, and the experts are still arguing over who did the paintings neither signed. Eventually, of course, they all developed their own styles, and they did draw from other sources as well, but even then traces of the influence they had upon each other survived.   RITRATTO DELLA FIGLIASTRA (1889)

Perhaps, if you view a number of Macchiaioli paintings together, what will strike you most about them is the tremendous awareness of atmosphere, mood and light: The heat of a summer day captured in the color of the sunlight shining on a wall, the timelessness of country life in the stance of the woman watching the cattle by a canal, the quiet progression from one generation to the next in the grandmother who rocks the cradle with her foot while sewing, the joy of a mother with her child in a garden, the suffering of wounded soldiers in a wagon. These are paintings that have something to say.

The Galleria Pananti, in Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, recenlty held an extremely interesting show dedicated to the Macchiaioli, focused on their identity as a group, showing how they learned from and influenced each other by juxtaposing paintings of similar subjects by the various artists -- Silvestro Lega's Madre e Figlio in Giardino (Mother and Child in a Garden) and Odoardo Borrani's Giovane Donna che Culla un Bambino (Young Woman Rocking a Child), or Giuseppe Abbati's Marina a Castiglioncello (a seaside scene) and Vincenzo Cabianca's Canale della Maremma Toscana (the canal scene shown here). The similarities are striking, and the differences fascinating.

The show is alas over, and most of the paintings have vanished back into the private collections from which they came. Palazzo Pitti has a number of works by the Macchiaioli however, in halls 9 through 24; Giovanni Fattori's self portrait is in the Corridoio Vasariano (visitable by request); there are works by Silvestro Lega in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Via Ricasoli (home of the Davide), and works by Telemaco Signorini in the Firenze Com'Era museum, Via dell'Oriuolo 24.

Going beyond Florence, in Livorno there is the Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori, with four halls dedicated to Fattori, and several more dedicated to the rest of the Macchiaioli, including Telemaco Signorini, Cristiano Banti, Vincenzo Cabianca and Giovanni Boldrini. A visit would make a nice day trip from Florence; Livorno is about an hour by train, and also has the fortified port the Medicis built in the 1500s to reduce their dependence on Pisa.

There are more paintings by Fattori in Montecatini Terme's Accademia d'Arte D. Scalabrino, on Viale Diaz, and in Arezzo's Museo Statale di Arte Medioevale e Moderna (in Palazzo Bruni-Ciocchi, Via San Lorentino 8). Arezzo's museum also has small works by other Macchiaioli, including Telemaco Signorini, who can also be found in Portoferraio's Piacoteca Comunale (on Elba).