Giuseppe De Nittis (February 25, 1846 – August 21, 1884)
[Efrem Gisella Calingaert. "De Nittis, Giuseppe." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 9 Aug. 2013.] was one of the most important
Italian painters of the 19th century, whose work merges the styles of
Salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments
* French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home
* Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment
Arts and entertainment
* Salon ...
art and
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...
.
Biography
De Nittis was born in
Barletta
Barletta () is a city, ''comune'' of Apulia, in south eastern Italy. Barletta is the capoluogo, together with Andria and Trani, of the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani. It has a population of around 94,700 citizens.
The city's territory belo ...
, in the region of
Apulia
it, Pugliese
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, where he lived with his family in the wealthiest district of the city near the intersection of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the Corso Garibaldi, just around the corner from the birthplace of another famous painter and contemporary,
Geremia Discanno.
Barletta at the time of the
Bourbons, and in particular during the reign of
Ferdinand II, nicknamed the "Bomb King" for having his own subjects cannonaded, was an extremely class-oriented city and those who could afford it gathered regularly near De Nittis' home beneath the Basilica of the Holy Sepulcher with its bronze Colossus of Heraclius in front. Situated on the Adriatic coast, Barletta's port thrived as a point of embarkation for the privileged travelling to or returning from the east.
His father, Raffaele, was a wealthy landowner who could afford to send his son to study under Giovanni Battista Calò, who tutored other notable Barlettan painters including Vincenzo De Stefano, Giuseppe Gabbiani, and Raffaele Girondi. But, Raffaele was publicly outspoken in his opposition to the Bourbon monarchy and support for the unification of Italy, so was imprisoned for two years.
Still, Giuseppe managed to gain admittance to the
Reale Instituto di Belle Arti, a university-level art school in Naples founded by
King Charles VII of Naples in 1752. Like his father, though, Giuseppe openly spoke his mind, resulting in his expulsion from the Institute in 1863 for insurbordination. After his expulsion, he launched his career with the exhibition of two paintings at the 1864 Neapolitan Promotrice. De Nittis came into contact with some of the artists known as the
Macchiaioli
The Macchiaioli () were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century. They strayed from antiquated conventions taught by the Italian art academies, and did much of their painting outdoors in order t ...
, becoming friends with
Telemaco Signorini and exhibiting 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 ...
. He also renewed his acquaintance with his former neighbor, Geremia Discanno, and both De Nittis and Discanno exhibited in
Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...
in 1867 and sold work there.
In 1867 he moved to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and entered into a contract with the art dealer
Adolphe Goupil, which called for him to produce saleable genre works. After gaining some visibility by exhibiting at the Salon he returned to Italy where, feeling free to paint from nature, he produced several views of
Vesuvius
Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma-stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of ...
.
In 1872 De Nittis returned to Paris and, no longer under contract to Goupil, achieved a success at the Salon with his painting ''Che freddo!'' (''It's So Cold!'') of 1874 (Private collection).
In that same year he was invited to exhibit at the first Impressionist exhibition, held at Nadar's. The invitation came from
Edgar Degas, who was a friend of several Italian artists residing in Paris, including
Telemaco Signorini,
Giovanni Boldini
Giovanni Boldini (31 December 1842 – 11 January 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter who lived and worked in Paris for most of his career. According to a 1933 article in ''Time'' magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" becaus ...
, and
Federico Zandomeneghi. De Nittis was not accepted by all of the Impressionists and did not participate in their subsequent exhibitions.
A trip to
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
resulted in a number of Impressionistic paintings. In 1875 De Nittis took up
pastels
A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those us ...
, which became an important medium for him in his remaining years and which he helped popularize.
Back in Paris, where his home was a favorite gathering place for Parisian writers and artists as well as for expatriate Italians, he executed pastel portraits of sitters including
De Goncourt,
Zola,
Manet
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...
, and
Duranty.
[Steingräber & Matteucci 1984, p. 111] He preferred pastels as the medium for his largest works, such as the triptych entitled ''Races at Auteuil'' (1881).
De Nittis exhibited twelve paintings in the
Exposition Universelle of 1878 and was awarded a gold medal.
In that same year he received the
Légion d’honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...
.
In 1884, at the age of 38, De Nittis died suddenly of a stroke at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye
Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris.
Inhabitants are called ''Saint-Germanois'' or ''Saint-Ge ...
.
His wife, the Parisian Léontine Lucile Gruvelle (married in 1869), donated his paintings to the town of Barletta, and they are now gathered in the Pinacoteca De Nittis in the Palace of the Marra in the hometown of the painter.
Works by De Nittis are in many public collections, including the
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French ar ...
in Paris, the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docu ...
in London, and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the List of largest art museums, largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. ...
in New York. His paintings ''Return from the Races'' and ''The Connoisseurs'' are in the
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...
. The
Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...
in Washington, D.C. is holding a special exhibition of works by De Nittis from November 12, 2022 to February 12, 2023. A catalog was published to accompany the exhibition.
''An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis''
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Gallery
File:So cold! (1874), by Giuseppe De Nittis.jpg, ''Che Freddo!'' (''It's so Cold!''), c. 1870
File:Westminster Bridge (1878) - De Nittis.JPG, ''Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge is a road-and-foot-traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, linking Westminster on the west side and Lambeth on the east side.
The bridge is painted predominantly green, the same colour as the leather seats in the H ...
'', 1878
File:Giuseppe de Nittis - Passa il treno.jpg, ''The Train Passes''
File:Colazione in giardino.jpg, ''Breakfast in the Garden'', 1883
References
;Sources
* Broude, Norma (1987). ''The Macchiaioli: Italian Painters of the Nineteenth Century''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
* Steingräber, Erich; Matteucci, Giuliano (1984). ''The Macchiaioli: tuscan painters of the sunlight''. New York: Stair Sainty Matthiesen Gallery.
{{DEFAULTSORT:De Nittis, Giuseppe
1846 births
1884 deaths
People from Barletta
Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery
19th-century Italian painters
Italian male painters
Italian Impressionist painters
19th-century Italian male artists