Antonio Fontanesi

His first important work was the panels of the Swiss Coffee in Reggio , which were then withdrawn to the house of the owner of the premises Mr . Tognoni and framed like real paintings. In 1847 he went to Turin , then was in Genoa and Milan , but in this e city its activities patriot , a soldier in the volunteer before Luciano Manara and then under Garibaldi , has more notoriety than artistic . In 1850 in Geneva and with friendship , although concerned, the Parisian Vittorio Brachard , won notoriety dignified and growing , and good compensation.

Up to 1867 scorrazzò Switzerland, France, England, going down frequently in Liguria and conducting its business mainly works in etching , in lithography, charcoal , crayon, watercolor and giving lessons . In 1867 the artist went to Florence and you did so, in the study by Cristiano Banti , ” Sunset on the Arno ” Now at that Academy of Fine Arts and “The job of the earth” , already in the Gallery of the Comm. Paolo Porpora . In 1868 he was appointed director and teacher at the Academy of Lucca and the following year he moved to Turin to take on the chin teaches , the Albertina , the school of landscape , just set up .

After seven years of valiant and loving teaching to a group of enthusiastic devotees and disciples , he went to Tokyo to teach at that academy and remained there until September 1878. Having recovered in Turin , he worked with new impetus and renewed passion , but his health was shaken , and he died after four years during which he hopes to alternating depressions , leaving a large number of works now rightly recognized imperishable , most of which figured in the posthumous Show in Turin in 1932.

In the complex of these works Fontanesi was shown not to have gone along with it fashion, it industry , wanting to contend with nature for his own pleasure and not for others. For this was in art enemies and indifferent, but did not lack in life awards and exaltations .

In its posthumous Show of 1932 were reunited and exhibited in the Museum of Turin , 436 works of Fontanesi , including oil paintings, watercolors, charcoal drawings and engravings that would be impossible to list and which recall the most famous : ” The morning , “” Afternoon , “” The Mill , “” The calm ” ; ” Grassland Creyes “,” Clear ” , ” Shepherdess ” and” In solitude , “” Woman at the source , “” lonely road , “” The clouds ” ” Work , “” Vespers ” , ” doorway ” , ” April ” , ” Sunset on the pond ” ; ” The Barn ” ,” The bridge , “” The bathroom , “” Evening , “” Summer in the Dauphiné ” , ” House in Japan ,” ” Farmhouse in Rivoli ,” which with many other paintings , studies and oil sketches , watercolor, etc. . belong to the Museum of Turin, ” Clouds ,” ” The Lake Geneva ” and ” Forest Lake Geneva ” , owned by count ing. gr. uff . Adriano Tournon of Turin, ” The herd ” , already in the Gallery of the Comm. Paul Ingegnoli of Milan, ” Back from the pasture ,” ” Back from the fields ” ; ” Idyllic ” “I remember the trip” ; ” Pond along the Mugnone ” ; ” Fountain near Signa ,” ” Twilight on Mugnone ,” “The spring ” , ” After the noon , “” in the barn , “” Flowers , “and other valuable works in the collection of the Comm. Lorenzo Delleani of Carignano , ” ford ” , owned by Mr. Luigi Cora in Turin; “Campaign with herds hour after the rain ” , located at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence ” Morning of October,” in the Gallery of Modern Art of Rome with two other works ; ” Road to Creyes ” , owned by the cornm . Vittorio Basso in Milan, ” The way of the fields,” in the Gallery of Turin, “April” , in the collection of the Comm. Mario Rossello di Milano ; ” Altacomba ” , owned by the gr. uff . Antonio Bianchi di Torino ; ” Sunset on Lake Geneva” from the heirs of the painter Marco Calderini ; ” Sheep grazing ( Dellinato ),” in Coll. of A. Toscanini , ” Chiavica at Optevoz ” , in the Municipality of Cuneo , ” St. Paul’s in London ” at the gr. uff . Edoardo Rubino di Torino ” The watering hole ” in the Pinacoteca di Bologna.