Antonio Donghi (March 16, 1897 – July 16, 1963) was an Italian painter of scenes of popular life, landscapes, and still life.

Biography

Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - Donghi Antonio, Convento

Born in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, he studied painting at the Instituto di Belle Arti from 1908 to 1916.Gale, Oxford Art Online. After military service in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he studied art in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, soon establishing himself as one of Italy's leading figures in the neoclassical movement that arose in the 1920s. Possessed of an extremely refined technique, Donghi favored strong composition, spatial clarity, and populist subject matter.Cowling and Mundy 1990, p. 102. His figures possess a gravity and an archaic stiffness reminiscent of

Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca (, also , ; – 12 October 1492), originally named Piero di Benedetto, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca i ...

. Critics likened his work to that of

Henri Rousseau Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the Georges Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...

, whose scenes of contemporary life are similarly touched with a subtle humor. His still lifes often consist of a small vase of flowers, depicted with the disarming symmetry of

naive art Naivety (also spelled naïvety), naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of moral idealism. A ''naïve'' may ...

. Donghi achieved both popular and critical success. In 1925,

Franz Roh Franz Roh (21 February 1890 – 30 December 1965), was a German historian, photographer, and art critic. Roh is perhaps best known for his 1925 book ''Nach-Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei'' ("Post ...

named him among the major Italian artists in the new magic realism tendency. In 1927 Donghi won First Prize in an International Exhibit at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. By the 1940s, Donghi's work was far outside the mainstream of

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

, and his reputation declined, although he continued to exhibit regularly. In his last years he concentrated mainly on landscapes, painted in a style that emphasizes linear patterns. He died in Rome in 1963. Most of Donghi's works are in Italian collections, notably the

Museo di Roma The Museo di Roma is a museum in Rome, Italy, part of the network of Roman civic museums. The museum was founded in the Fascist era with the aim of documenting the local history and traditions of the "old Rome" that was rapidly disappearing, bu ...

Notes

References

*Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer (1990). ''On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910-1930''. London: Tate Gallery. *Gale, Matthew. "Donghi, Antonio". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press.

External links

Ten Dreams Galleries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donghi, Antonio 1897 births 1963 deaths 20th-century Italian painters 20th-century Italian male artists Italian male painters Italian landscape painters