Giovanni Fattori
Encyclopedia
Macchiaioli
The Macchiaioli were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century, who, breaking with the antiquated conventions taught by the Italian academies of art, did much of their painting outdoors in order to capture natural light, shade, and colour...
. He was initially a painter of historical themes and military subjects. In his middle years, inspired by the Barbizon school
Barbizon school
The Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
, he became one of the leading Italian plein-airists
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
, painting landscapes, rural scenes, and scenes of military life. After 1884, he devoted much energy to etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
.
Youth and training
Fattori was born in modest circumstances in LivornoLivorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
. His early education was rudimentary and his family initially planned for him to study for a qualification in commerce, but his skill in drawing persuaded them to apprentice him in 1845 to Giuseppe Baldini (born 1807- ?), a local painter of religious themes and genre subjects. The following year he moved to Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
where he first studied under Giuseppe Bezzuoli
Giuseppe Bezzuoli
Giuseppe Bezzuoli was an Italian painter of the Neoclassic period, active in Milan, Rome, and his native city of Florence....
and, later in the year, at the Accadèmia di Belli Arti. At that time, however, his energies were directed less toward the study of art than to reading the historical novels (especially those with medieval themes) of such authors as Ugo Foscolo
Ugo Foscolo
Ugo Foscolo , born Niccolò Foscolo, was an Italian writer, revolutionary and poet.-Biography:Foscolo was born on the Ionian island of Zakynthos...
, Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi
Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi
Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi was an Italian writer and politician involved in the Italian risorgimento.-Biography:...
and Walter Scott
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....
.
In 1848 he interrupted his studies and participated as a courier, distributing leaflets for the Partito d'Azione
Partito d'Azione
-History:It was an anti-fascist political party in the tradition of Giuseppe Mazzini and the Risorgimento. Founded in July 1942 by former militants of Giustizia e Libertà , liberal socialists, democrats...
, in the democratic anti-Austrian movement during the revolutionary years of 1848-1849. However, his family prevented him from joining the army. In 1850 he resumed his studies at the Accademia in Florence. He made it a habit to note all his observations in small notebooks that he always kept with him, illustrating with innumerable sketch
Sketch (drawing)
A sketch is a rapidly executed freehand drawing that is not usually intended as a finished work...
es. Some of his later etchings were based on these observations.
Early paintings (to 1860)
Fattori's development to maturity as a painter was unusually slow. His first paintings, few of which survive, date from the early 1850s. They include portraits and a few historical scenes influenced by Bezzuoli—often scenes from MedievalMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
or Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
history. In 1851 he participated in the Promotrice fiorentina with the painting Ildegonda, inspired by the short novel by Tommaso Grossi
Tommaso Grossi
Tommaso Grossi , Lombard poet and novelist, was born in Bellano, beside the Lake of Como.He took his degree in law at Pavia in 1810, and proceeded thence to Milan to exercise his profession; but the Austrian government, suspecting his loyalty, interfered with his prospects, and in consequence...
.
In 1853–54 he studied realism, together with the Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
artist Andrea Gastaldi (1826-1889). He probably painted his first landscapes in Gastaldi's company. Around 1857 Enrico Pollastrini
Enrico Pollastrini
Enrico Pollastrini was an Italian painter. He was born at Livorno. He was a pupil of Giuseppe Bezzuoli. He was first professor and afterwards president of the Academy of Fine Arts in the city of Florence, where he died.-References:...
, another pupil of Giuseppe Bezzuoli, introduced him to the style of Ingres
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Although he considered himself to be a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, by the end of his life it was Ingres's portraits, both painted and drawn, that were recognized as his greatest...
. This had some impact on Fattori's historical paintings. One of his best historical themes was "Maria Stuarda", (Mary Stuart at the battlefield of Langside
Battle of Langside
The Battle of Langside, fought on 13 May 1568, was one of the more unusual contests in Scottish history, bearing a superficial resemblance to a grand family quarrel, in which a mother fought her brother who was defending the rights of her infant son...
) painted between 1858 and 1860, based on his reading of Walter Scott.
Barbizon school
The Barbizon school of painters were part of a movement towards realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870...
while visiting Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
for the Exposition of 1855, and would bring back to Italy an enthusiasm for the then-novel practice of painting outdoors, directly from nature. In 1859 Fattori met Roman landscape painter Giovanni Costa
Giovanni Costa
Giovanni Costa , known as Nino, was an Italian landscape painter and revolutionary.-Biography:Costa was born in Rome...
, whose example influenced him to join his colleagues and take up painting realistic
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
landscapes and scenes of contemporary life en plein air
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
. This marked a turning point in Fattori's development: he became a member of the Macchiaioli
Macchiaioli
The Macchiaioli were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century, who, breaking with the antiquated conventions taught by the Italian academies of art, did much of their painting outdoors in order to capture natural light, shade, and colour...
, a group of Tuscan painters whose methods and aims are somewhat similar to those of the Impressionists
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
, of which they are considered forerunners. Like their French counterparts, they were criticized for their paintings' lack of decorative qualities and conventional finish, although the Macchiaioli did not go as far as the Impressionists did in dissolving form in light.
In 1859 he won the competition for a patriotic battle scene, organized by the Concorso Ricasoli (national competition organized by the government of Bettino Ricasoli
Bettino Ricasoli
Bettino Ricàsoli, 1.º Barone Ricàsoli, 1.º Conte di Brolio was an Italian statesman.-Biography:...
) with his painting Dopo la battaglia di Magenta (After the battle of Magenta
Battle of Magenta
The Battle of Magenta was fought on June 4, 1859 during the Second Italian War of Independence, resulting in a French-Sardinian victory under Napoleon III against the Austrians under Marshal Ferencz Gyulai....
) (completed in 1860-1861). The financial reward allowed him to marry Settimia Vannucci in July 1859 and to settle in Florence.
Paintings in the middle period (1861-1883)
Fattori's mature works represent a synthesis between the natural light of painting en plein air—painting with vivid but composed spots (macchia)—and the traditional method of composing large paintings in the studio, from sketches.During the period 1861–1867 he stayed mainly at Livorno, to nurse his wife who had contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
. During this period he painted peasantry, themes from rural life and also some portraits, such as the portrait of Argia , his sister-in-law. In these works he demonstrated his mastery of macchia technique, natural light and shade with their contrasting areas of broad colour, showing the formative influence of Giovanni Costa.
Late in 1866 he moved to a new and larger studio in Florence, to accommodate his larger historical canvases, as he still received commissions for epic battle scenes from the Italian unification
Italian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
(Risorgimento). A famous painting from this period is the Storming of the Madonna della Scoperta, an episode of the Battle of San Martino
Battle of San Martino
The 15th Century Battle of San Martino in Italy was part of an ongoing conflict between two city states, the Venetians under Berterelli and the Florentines under Giovanni, in 1482...
(1859).
Castiglioncello
Castiglioncello is a frazione of the comune of Rosignano Marittimo, in the province of Livorno, Tuscany, Italy. It stands on a promontory reaching out into the Tyrrhenian Sea, surrounded by pinewoods and hills that fall right down to the sea forming cliffs, little inlets, coves and sandy...
with the critic Diego Martelli, the theoretician of the Macchiaioli
Macchiaioli
The Macchiaioli were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century, who, breaking with the antiquated conventions taught by the Italian academies of art, did much of their painting outdoors in order to capture natural light, shade, and colour...
. Working together with the painter Giuseppe Abbati
Giuseppe Abbati
Giuseppe Abbati was an Italian artist who belonged to the group known as the Macchiaioli.Abbati was born in Naples and received early training in painting from his brother Vincenzo. He participated in Garibaldi's 1860 campaign, suffering the loss of his right eye at the Battle of Capua...
on the same themes, he painted a number of landscapes en plein air and studies of rustic life and peasants working in market gardens. In these paintings he put particular emphasis on a bold design within a geometrical simplicity, and on an intense luminosity. One of his paintings from this period is Pause in the Maremma with Farmers and Ox-cart (1873–75).
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
exhibition of 1870 for his battle scene Prince Amadeo Feritio at Custoza. On a trip to Rome in 1872 he made studies for Horse Market at Terracina (painting destroyed) for which he received a bronze medal at the World Exhibition of Vienna in 1873 and again at the Philadelphia World's Fair
Centennial Exposition
The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...
in 1876.
Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas . His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as he was the only artist to exhibit in both forms...
and the expatriate Federico Zandomeneghi
Federico Zandomeneghi
Federico Zandomeneghi was an Italian Impressionist painter.Zandomeneghi, whose father and grandfather were sculptors, was born in Venice and enrolled in the Venice Academy in 1856. A supporter of Garibaldi, his political beliefs necessitated a move to Florence in 1860...
. But he reacted unenthusiastically to Impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
works, expressing his preference for the artists of the Barbizon school and his deep admiration for Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
and Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century...
.
Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form...
).
However, he experienced financial difficulties, as his battle scenes found few purchasers. When he was unable to pay his taxes, his property in Florence was confiscated; this and a broken kneecap further depressed him. In 1878 he sent two paintings to the Exposition Universelle of Paris, but was too impoverished to attend. His disillusionment is revealed in the harsher realism of his works from the late 1870s.
In the 1880s he painted mainly rural themes, such as horses and cattle. His visits to the estate of the Princes Corsini
Corsini
Corsini is the name of a Florentine princely family.-History:The founder is said to be Neri Corsini, who came to prominence circa 1170. The family are likely to have originated from Corsica, during the time when the Republic of Pisa was ruling the island. Initially the family was known as Corso ...
in Maremma
Maremma
The Maremma is a vast area in Italy bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea, consisting of part of south-western Tuscany - Maremma Livornese and Maremma Grossetana , and part of northern Lazio - Maremma Laziale .The poet Dante Alighieri in his Divina Commedia places the...
in 1881 and 1882 culminated in a series of paintings of cowherds, some of which were exhibited at the Esposizione Nazionale in Venice in 1887.
Later paintings and etchings (1884-1908)
From 1875 on, he began producing many graphics and, from 1884, a significant number of etchingEtching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s. These met approval at the exhibition Promotrice in Florence (1886) and at the Esposizione Nazionale in Bologna (1888). In the same year, these last etchings were acquired by the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, or the National Gallery of Modern Art , is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, dedicated to modern art....
in Rome. His etchings were innovative through their technique and composition.
In 1884 he produced an album with 20 original lithographs: 20 Ricordi del vero. In 1888 he was promoted to Resident Professor of Drawing in the Accademia of Florence and was also named Professor of Figure Study at the School of Architecture.
His painted sketches made outdoors are typically painted on small wood panels. These were used as reference material in painting larger compositions of rural subjects, such as his Branding of the Colts in the Maremma (1887) or Cowboys and Herds in the Maremma (1894). These large-scale canvases provide a visual drama and a spaciousness, lacking in most contemporary traditional formats.
Fattori participated in the exhibitions at Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
(award, 1889), Bologna, Milan (Accademia di Brera, 1891), Turin (Accademia Albertina, 1900) and Florence, He was also present with one painting, the Brush Gatherers, at the Italian Exhibition in London. At exhibitions in Paris, he received an honourable mention in 1889 and the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1900.
In 1891 Giovanni Fattori married for the second time, this time with his companion Marianna Bigozzi Martinelli. Despite the modest income his work provided, he lived in poverty. Financial trouble and rising debt forced him again to give private tuition. Lack of money to buy frames prevented him from participating in the exhibition in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
in 1896.
He also started drawing illustrations, first for I promessi sposi, a historical novel by Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Manzoni was an Italian poet and novelist.He is famous for the novel The Betrothed , generally ranked among the masterpieces of world literature...
(1895) and in 1896 illustrations for the satirical newspaper Fiammetta (founded by his friend Diego Martelli).
In 1900 he became a member of the Accadèmia Albertina of Turin. After the death of his second wife in 1903, Fattori married again in 1906, this time with Fanny Marinelli.
Plinio Nomellini
Plinio Nomellini was an Italian painter.-Biography:Nomellini left his hometown of Livorno and enrolled in 1885 at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied under Giovanni Fattori and formed friendships with Telemaco Signorini and Silvestro Lega as well as Giuseppe Pellizza some time later...
, adopted a Neo-impressionist
Neo-impressionism
Neo-impressionism was coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat’s greatest masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, marked the beginning of this movement when it first made its appearance at an exhibition...
style, the Divisionismo (Chromoluminarism). In 1891 he engaged in a polemic against pointillism
Pointillism
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...
.
Around 1903 he wrote: "Do you know which is the worst animal? Man. Why? Egotistical, false, and a betrayer ... I believe in nothing: I hold nothing sacred but my wife and my stepdaughter. I am an atheist because I do not believe that there must be a God upon whom good and evil depend ... I have spent my years hoping and I will end discouraged." Among his late works are several images expressive of his profound disappointment, notably The Dead Horse—What Now?
He died in Florence on August 30, 1908. He was buried, with other illustrious people from Livorno, in the loggia next to the church Santuario della Madonna di Montenoro in the village Montenero.
Legacy
Giovanni Fattori is considered the most prominent member of the Macchiaioli. His work is dominated by military subjects, which are rarely battle scenes but rather soldiers in encampments, soldiers mustering, or infantry units at rest. He also painted sensitive portraitPortrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s, landscapes
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
, rural scenes and horses. But at the end of his life he was out of touch with the new currents in painting, which led to his decline. His works didn't attract the interest of the public anymore, causing his financial troubles. Giovanni Fattori was respected by his colleagues but, due to his aloofness, he didn't get the recognition of the public at large.
Examples of his work are at Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, or the National Gallery of Modern Art , is an art gallery in Rome, Italy, dedicated to modern art....
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
; Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Galleria d'Arte Moderna di Palazzo Pitti
Palazzo Pitti
The Palazzo Pitti , in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast mainly Renaissance palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio...
, Firenze; and in New Zealand, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
The Dunedin Public Art Gallery holds the main public art collection of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Located in The Octagon in the heart of the city, it is close to the city's public library, municipal chambers, and other facilities such as the Regent Theatre.-History:The gallery was founded by...
; in North America at Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
's Museum of Fine Arts
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, is one of the largest museums in the United States, attracting over one million visitors a year. It contains over 450,000 works of art, making it one of the most comprehensive collections in the Americas...
.
He is honoured in his home town by the Giovanni Fattori Museum in Livorno.
Further reading
- Panconi, T. (1999). Giovanni Fattori, non soltanto un problema di formazione. In the Antologia dei Macchiaioli, la trasformazione sociale e artistica nella Toscana di metà Ottocento. Catalogue of an exhibition held at Palazzo Comunale of Pistoia. Pacini Editore, Pisa.
External links
Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori (official website)- Giovanni Fattori Museum
- Fattori Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
- http://www.macchiaioli-montecatini.com Paintings of Giovanni Fattori