- Antonio Donghi
Antonio Donghi (
March 16 ,1897 –July 16 ,1963 ) was an Italian painter of scenes of popular life, landscapes, and still life.Born in
Rome , he studied at the Instituto di Belle Arti. After military service inWorld War I he studied art inFlorence andVenice , 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 unpretentious subject matter. His figures possess a gravity and an archaic stiffness reminiscent ofPiero della Francesca , but a closer comparison may be made toGeorges Seurat , 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 ofnaive art .Donghi achieved both popular and critical success, in 1927 winning First Prize in an International Exhibit at theCarnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.By the 1940s, Donghi's work was far outside the mainstream of
modernism , 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 .References
*Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer (1990). "On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910-1930". London: Tate Gallery. ISBN 1-85437-043-X
External links
* [http://www.tendreams.org/donghi.htm Ten Dreams Galleries]
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