Cod: 229219

Author : De Giacomi Eugenio ( Modena, 1852-1917)

Period: Second half of the 19th century

Eugenio De Giacomi (Modena, 1852-1917) "Interior scene with a male and a female figure" Signed and dated at the top center "De Giacomi Eugenio 1884" The painting is in its original canvas. 57 x 76 cm He studied at the local Academy of Fine Arts, formerly Atestina, then dominated by the great figure of the painter Adeodato Malatesta. The prestige of this school, precisely in those years (1877), which saw its decline sanctioned with the degradation to a simple art institute, remained entrusted only to Malatesta, who was D.'s teacher. The entire formation of D. took place, therefore, within such circumscribed municipal horizons, where an exhausted figurative tradition was perpetuated, closed to even the slightest messages in an innovative sense. From this crisis, both from the artistic elaboration and from the institutional side, the work of D. appears as symptomatic as ever, who specialized almost exclusively on a thematic strand, still life, inspired by the noble prototypes of the Flemish world, as well as the seventeenth-century examples present in the Estense Gallery: namely, the essays of the Lombard Pier Francesco Cittadini, long active at the service of the Este court, and his native followers, such as, in particular, Cristoforo Munari. He debuted with Fruits and Still Life at the Triennial Exhibition of Fine Arts and Industries, held in Modena in 1877 (p. 11 of the catalog.) under the patronage of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists of the Province (formerly "of the Este States"), an association that was in parallel - and certainly not in alternative for figurative and cultural contents in a broad sense - to the bloodless institution of the academy. The artist regularly participated in the exhibitions promoted by the Society for Encouragement with works that re-proposed, with slight variations, the subject matter of still life, from game to flowers to fruit. Rich is the number of pictorial testimonies that have been received, not without remarkable episodes for qualitative dignity, now in the possession, often, of the heirs of the commissioners themselves; among the many, it is worth at least mentioning, from Modenese private collections, Still Life with Copper Casserole, Plums, Flowers, Lemon (1891), Still Life with Melon, Flask, Fruit Bowl of Apples and Grapes (1893), Composition with Tent, Table, Vase of Flowers and Fruit (1901), which evokes in the compositional layout the aulic precedents of Cittadini, Still Life with Fruit Bowl, Marzipan, Pastries and Candies, and Still Life with Duck, Mallard and Woodcock (1908), with some memories of the creations of the famous Piacenza native Felice Boselli. All essays conducted with fine opticalism, with sub vitro effects of Flemish imprint, virtuoso in rendering the transparency of crystals as the enameled colors of majolica, on dark or neutral backgrounds. Locally, D. was the most highly regarded interpreter of this very successful strand which, beyond the generic motivation of a neo-seventeenth-century revival, was resolved in a decorative and superficial complement to furnishings and boiseries; a strand to which the Carpigiani Lelio Rossi and Andrea Becchi attended in those same years, and among the Modenese, in particular Narciso Malatesta, son of the famous Adeodato. Alongside this favorite and congenial genre, a portrait vein coexists in the artist's production - thus the portraits of family members (Modena, De Giacomi property): of the Sister Maria, in miniature, of the Daughter Antonietta (1916), refined pencil drawing, of the Father (1916), in pen, in addition to a Self-Portrait in oil (1910), tests that can be placed in a climate of late academy, still in the orbit of Malatesta - and a landscape vein attested by various examples, both of painting and of fine graphics. Noteworthy are the four Views of Castles in the province of Modena - Maranello, Castelnuovo, Castelvetro and Levizzano - (1910), intended to decorate a loggia of the Bossetti villa, which prove a slight evolution from the intimate taste, informing the countless still lifes, to the pleinair landscape, from the most orthodox academicism to a more freely evocative trait, not without impressionistic reflexes (Guandalini, 1965, p. 3). Married in 1891 to Iside Rizzatti, from whom he had three daughters, he conducted a quiet activity as a teacher "of drawing, of figure, of ornament and of landscape" - according to an official attestation signed by Adeodato Malatesta (in Guandalini, 1965, p. 2) -, teaching for seventeen years at the prestigious S. Carlo college, as well as at other city institutes. Died in Modena on August 15, 1917. Sources and Bibl.: Modena, Arch. stor. comunale, Registro dei nati 1853, vol. 1229, n. 11; Società d'incoraggiamento per gli artisti della provincia di Modena, Albo, VI triennio, Modena 1882, p. 55; L'Esposiz. triennale di belle arti ed industrie nella provincia di Modena, 1884, Modena 1886, p. 49; L'Esposiz. triennale di belle arti ed industrie, VIII triennio, Modena 1892, p. 43; Società d'incoraggiamento per gli artisti della prov. di Modena, Albo della mostra, X triennio, Modena 1896, p. 47; Id., Albo della esposizione, XIV triennio, Modena 1906, p. 14; G. Guandalini, Mostra del pittore E. D. (catal.), Modena 1965; Id., Pittori modenesi dell'800 (catal.), Modena 1966, p. 7, n. 23; A. Barbieri, Repertorio bio-bibliografico dei modenesi illustri, in Modena. Vicende e protagonisti, a cura di G. Bertuzzi, Bologna 1971, III, p. 262; Pittori modenesi dell'800 (catal.), a cura di A. Mezzetti, Modena 1974, pp. 12, 36, fig. 12; S. Poletti, I pittori dell'800 in Emilia Romagna, Milano s. d. [ma 1983], p. 26; G. Martinelli Braglia, Dall'accademia al revival. Andrea Becchi (1856-1926) (catal.), con introduzione di A. Garuti, Modena 1983, pp. 40, 114, scheda n. 83; L. Frigeri Leonelli, Pittori modenesi dell'800 (catal.), Modena 1986, pp. 135-40.