Calcedonio Reina (

Catania Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

, Sicily February 4, 1843 – Catania, November 9, 1911) was an Italian painter and poet. He is described as having a melancholic and neurasthenic temperament in life and art.

Biography

His father was a prominent surgeon in Sicily who wanted his son to follow him into a medical career. However, Calcedonio moved to Naples in 1864 and soon found himself making copies of the classic sculptures in the Capodimonte Museum. He was accepted as a pupil by the Institute of Fine Arts under

Domenico Morelli Domenico Morelli (4 August 182313 August 1901) was an Italian painter, who mainly produced historical and religious works. Morelli was immensely influential in the arts of the second half of the 19th century, both as director of the Accademia di ...

. Soon afterwards he travelled to Florence and Rome, prolifically painting interiors and vedute of ruins and making drawings of statues and busts. His paintings include ''Il Cieco pompeiano'' (''The Blind Man in Pompeii''); ''Suor Clara sedotta dal demonio'' (''Sister Clara Seduced by a Demon''); and ''Una scena dell'89'' (''A Scene from 1889''). At the 1877 National Fine Arts Exhibition in Naples, he exhibited ''Accaduto nel coretto'' ('' The Correct Man's Accident''); ''Miserere''; ''Exagitatio'' (''Agitation''); and ''Ada''. In 1881 at Turin, and the next year at Milan, he exhibited ''Amore e morte'' (''Love and Death'') - showing a couple having a loving kiss in front of the rows of mummified corpses in Palermo's Catacombs of Cappuccini, it is a morbid, almost ghoulish, variation on Hayez's '' The Kiss''. In 1883 at Rome, he exhibited ''Per Montecarlo'' (''For Monte Carlo'', now lost); and ''È lui..'' (''And he..'', also known as ''Accaduto nel Coretto''). In Berlin in 1883 and London in 1888, he exhibited paintings titled ''Temptation''. At Palermo in 1891-1892 he exhibited ''Campagne d'una volta'' (''Past Campaigns'') and ''Expiation''. He entered a painting entitled ''Vendetta'' (''Revenge'') for the 1897 Brera Triennale in Milan. In 1898 he sent ''Nyosoumba'' to be exhibited in Turin and ''Ti aspetto'' (''I Am Waiting For You'') to St Petersburg in Russia. His book of poetry ''Canti della Patria'' (''Songs of the Fatherland'') was warmly received by contemporaries such as

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

, Guerrazzi, and Tommasèo. Calcedonio was a friend of the famed Sicilian poet

Mario Rapisardi Mario Rapisardi (25 February 1844, in Catania – 4 January 1912, in Catania) was an Italian poet, supporter of Risorgimento and member of the Scapigliatura (definition but refused). Life As a boy, he was taught "grammar, rhetoric and the Latin la ...

. ''Dizionario degli Artisti Italiani Viventi: pittori, scultori, e Architetti.''
by Angelo de Gubernatis. Tipe dei Successori Le Monnier, 1889, page 410. The house where he lived and died in Catania has a plaque on its exterior calling him ''a poet in painting, and a painter in poetry'' - in full it reads: ''Calcedonio Reina/Cuore e mente d'artista/Incarno potentemente/incarnó potentemente/il pensiero geniale/nella magia dei colori e dei versi/e fu poeta nella pittura/pittore nella poesia/in questa casa ov'egli visse e morí/la patria/a perenne ricordo.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reina, Calcedonio 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian painters 1842 births 1911 deaths Painters from Naples Artists from Catania Italian poets Italian male poets Poets from Sicily 19th-century Italian male artists 20th-century Italian male artists