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(b Cumiana, nr Turin, Aug 13, 1879; d Venice, June 10, 1966).
Italian painter. He began his studies at the Accademia Albertina in Turin where he was a pupil of Giacomo Grosso. His early painted works demonstrate his interest in Symbolism, Eugène Carrière, the bourgeois Intimism of the Nabis (Maurice Denis in particular), the painting of Arnold Böcklin and the references to classical mythology in the work of Franz von Stuck, Hermenegild Anglada Camarasa, Ignacio Zuloaga and Leonardo Bistolfi. After 1906 he lived in Rome for almost 20 years. His initial associations there with Ferruccio Ferrazzi (1891–1978) and Felice Casorati, and subsequent involvement with the Secessione romana, imposed an edge of realism on his Symbolist training. During these years he produced the Portrait of his Mother (1912; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.) and Portrait of a Priest (1913; Venice, Ca’ Pesaro). Encouraged by Armando Spadini he developed a ‘precious’ style of painting, rich with luminous blends of colour and acknowledging a debt to the paintings of the seicento and to classical forms. The ...
