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Lorenzo Delleani
By Lorenzo Delleani, Ezzelino da Romano contemplates the massacre of Vicenza

1863

About the Item

Lorenzo Delleani (Pollone, 1840 - Turin, 1908) Ezzelino da Romano contemplates the massacre of Vicenza Oil on canvas, 146x116 cm Framed, 170 x 140 cm Signed and dated 1863 lower right Bibliography: "Delleani. Life, work and his time" edited by Angelo Dragone, 1973, published with photos in Vol II at No. 29. Born in Pollone, near Biella, on January 17, 1840, Lorenzo Delleani trained at the Accademia Albertina in Turin as a student of Cesare Gamba and Carlo Arienti. He initially joined the Romantic painters and painted canvases of historical subjects, often alluding to key events of the Italian Risorgimento, bringing back multiple official awards. Especially during the first season of his artistic work, the Romantic period, the Piedmontese participated in a rich array of national and international exhibitions: between the 1860s and the 1890s, he was assiduously present at the Turin Promotrice delle Belle Arti-one of the crucial events in the cultural landscape of the newly founded Kingdom of Italy-presenting mainly works of historical subjects with a Romantic flavor, among which are the famous Tasso, Columbus, Cromwell, Conradin of Swabia, On the Wharf in Venice and Lungarno in Florence while, in 1874, he exhibited at the Salon de Paris two paintings that were a great success with the public and critics on French soil, the Veniero after Lepanto and the Vinti. From the end of the seventh decade of the nineteenth century, his style gradually varied, both in expressive means and thematic repertoire, in the direction of a renewed focus on the study from life of the landscape, producing canvases with dense tints and dazzling colors. With the beginning of the 1980s, the artist devoted himself exclusively to en plein air painting, conducted in quick, dense brushstrokes of color that capture the light, adopting Piedmontese views, depicted in changing light and seasons, as his favorite subjects. Another relevant theme regarding Delleani's production, especially of his maturity, is that of religious processions and popular festivities: attracted by the folklore and spirituality of his homeland, Biella, he gives life to images with a strong evocative gradient, which will be deeply appreciated by intellectuals and art historians of the first half of the twentieth century, with particular reference to Emilio Cecchi and Anna Maria Brizio, who believes that "the eagerness and shaping expressiveness" of the Piedmontese artist's landscape and genre painting is unparalleled in the Italian pictorial landscape of the nineteenth century. In 1883, Delleani traveled to the Netherlands, intending to study the works of the Golden Age painters, to whom he was attracted by their vivid and sumptuous colorism, and brought back new creative stimuli: bearing witness to the artist's Dutch sojourn is Amsterdam, an evocative view of the Dutch capital currently preserved at the GAM in Turin (inv. P/1958). A great friend and frequenter of Turin's upper middle-class Bricherasio family-the painter and patron Sofia Bricherasio was one of his favorite pupils (she may be the woman depicted in La pittrice della GAM di Torino of 1881)-Delleani also witnessed a historical event: Emanuele Bricherasio, Sofia's brother, distinguished himself for his enterprising efforts in the emerging automobile industry, and on July 1, 1899, he summoned a group of eminent aristocrats and notables to his Turin residence, appearing among the founders of an early company that later took the name F.I.A.T.. Delleani was specifically asked to depict the memorable event, and he produced a famous painting where Bricherasio is portrayed in the act of initialing the document that elevated him to the office of vice president. Settling permanently in Turin, at the residence of a cousin in Via Alfieri, Delleani painted until his death: in 1905, he had completed his last large canvas, The Feast of St. Barnabas, made especially to be donated to his native village, Pollone: his last painting was instead executed on September 28, 1908, in Oropa: while he was executing The Turning Point, his last view of the Sanctuary of the Black Madonna, the now elderly artist was portrayed by his favorite pupil, Giuseppe Bozzalla: Bozzalla's painting constitutes a precious testimony of Delleani's passion and dedication with respect to his painting activity, which he conducted until the end of his days. Commemorating the figure of Delleani is the fine monument erected in his honor at the square of the Collegiate Church in Pollone, within which the painter is depicted with the striking profile of the Sanctuary of Oropa behind him, by the hand of Leonardo Bistolfi (1859-1933), a plaster sketch of which exists at the Museum of the Biellese Territory in Biella. Since the first decade of the 20th century, Delleani's work has been particularly appreciated by critics and "insiders": the first post-mortem exhibition dedicated to the artist was held as part of the Promotrice delle Belle Arti in Turin in 1909; however, it dates to 1940-the year of the centenary of his birth- the largest exhibition in honor of the Biella-born painter: the show, curated by acclaimed art historian Vittorio Viale and Delleani's favorite pupil Giuseppe Bozzalla, was held at Turin's Salone della Stampa between Feb. 10 and April 7. In just under thirty days, the event welcomed more than 230,000 visitors, in an "absolute public success" (La Stampa, Sunday, April 7, 1940). At the '40 exhibition catalog, edited by Marziano Bernardi, Lorenzo Delleani's work is presented as the "realistic counterpart" to Antonio Fontanesi's constant idealization and Vittorio Avondo's dark, placid crepuscularism. Among the 120 works presented at the major exhibition dedicated to the Piedmontese painter is also Ezzelino da Romano contemplates the massacre of Vicenza: the work, executed in 1863 and first shown at the Turin Promotrice of the same year (displayed under no. 218, still visible near the lower right margin of the canvas), presents an absolutely unusual iconographic theme, that of the destruction of the city of Vicenza - the view behind the characters features some of the most distinctive buildings of medieval Vicenza, including the Bissara tower, symbol of the city, erected at the behest of the noble Bissari family between 1211 and 1229, the Verlato tower and the Loschi tower - perpetrated at the hands of the troops of the Swabian emperor Frederick II. According to what the pro-imperial chronicler Gerardo Maurisio reports, it was Ezzelino da Romano who pushed the emperor's attempt to conquer Vicenza: the capture of the city, subjected to a violent and bloody siege that culminated on All Saints' Eve 1236, led to the rise of Romano, who became governor of the Venetian center on behalf of Frederick II, ousting Marquis Azzo II d'Este. It is for this reason that the Roman appears smug as he observes, cloaked in red and clad in shining armor below the Captaincy Lodge, the grim spectacle that would mark the beginning of his climb up the sociopolitical hierarchies. The bright and flamboyant tones of the canvas, as well as the composition crowded with multiple figures and managed on multiple levels, align and compete with the pictorial pieces of the most prominent figures of Italian Romanticism, Francesco Hayez (1791-1882), Giuseppe Molteni (1800-1867) and Angelo Inganni (1807-1880). A work like this is able to confirm the words of Bernardi, among the leading experts on the painter, who describes Delleani as "the most instinctive and impetuous painter of modern Piedmont."
  • Creator:
    Lorenzo Delleani (1840 - 1908, Italian)
  • Creation Year:
    1863
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 57.49 in (146 cm)Width: 45.67 in (116 cm)
  • More Editions & Sizes:
    cm 146x116Price: $30,923
  • Medium:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Milan, IT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU2639215779992

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