Gaetano Previati

Gaetano Previati’s quotations.

Mixed techniques and oils executed by Gaetano Previati before the Divisionist period start at 2,000 euros and reach 9,000 euros. Pointillist works, on the other hand, are the most sought after and have estimates between 15,000 euros and 40,000 euros if medium-sized. Large masterpieces also reach higher figures, above 100,000 euros.

These are guide values : estimates are influenced by many variables such as size, subject, period of execution, and technique. We recommend sending us a photo of your Gaetano Previati work to get an accurate estimate free of charge.

Biography

Gaetano Previati was born in Ferrara in 1852 into a petit-bourgeois family. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in his hometown, but after about three years interrupted his studies to perform military service. He then went to Florence in 1876, coming into contact with the history painter Amos Cassioli. He stayed in his studio for a year, then moved to Milan where he enrolled at the Brera Academy, taking courses from history painter Giuseppe Bertini.

From history painting to the climate of Milanese Scapigliatura

His first approach to art is thus linked to the late Romantic poetics of the Risorgimento. In fact, his exhibition debut took place in Turin in 1880 with two history paintings Cesare Borgia a Capua and Gli ostaggi di Crema. The following year he was in Genoa with A Sant’Onofrio morte di Torquato Tasso. Also included in this production with a historical-literary theme is the first version of Paolo e Francesca made in 1887.

He was also influenced by the language of Domenico Morelli especially in works such as Ecce Homo and Dolor materno.

In the mid-1980s, thanks to the friendship of Luigi Conconi and the suggestions of Tranquillo Cremona’s painting, he approached instead the circles of the Milanese Scapigliatura, orienting his poetics toward themes aimed at social and symbolism. The brushstroke also changes, becoming more material and vibrant in the wake of Scapigliati examples. In the circle of the accursed painters he approaches the reading of Baudelaire, Hoffman and Shelley, and even sets out to illustrate Edgar Allan Poe’s Extraordinary Stories, without obtaining a commission. In this symbolist and noir climate is placed a painting exhibited in Bologna in 1888 as The Hash Smokers in which he deals with a disturbing theme.

Mystical pointillism and literary influences.

In the early 1890s the artist came to pointillism by participating in the Brera Triennale in 1891 with a painting with a filamentous brushstroke and a symbolist theme as Maternity, a subject conceived in its transcendent and mystical meaning. It was on this occasion that he entered into a contract with Vittore Grubicy de Dragon, who steered him more and more toward Divisionist research and provided him with the economic serenity to be able to devote himself to his work. During this period he experimented a great deal, receiving various stimuli from the literary and pictorial worlds, especially from the Pre-Raphaelites and Divisionist friends such as Segantini. To this climate of study can be associated the work Romeo and Juliet, also known as The Kiss, presented at the 1889 Milan Permanente, which manifests clear Pre-Raphaelite influences. He also worked on illustrations for the new Hoepli edition of I promessi sposi published in 1896.

New colors and Ligurian light

In 1898 he moved to Lavagna, a Ligurian town where he devoted himself to chromatic research, surprised and fascinated by the different colors that characterize the landscape.

In fact, at the 1899 Venice Biennial he presented two canvases with allegorical and divisionist subjects such as The Dance of the Hours and Diva Nutrix in which all the symbolism of light that explodes on the surfaces of the paintings emerges. Other works that reflect on this symbolism are The Creation of Light and The Fall of the Angels exhibited in New York in 1913.

All these luministic and chromatic researches spring forth in the writing of a number of scientific texts such as Memoirs on the Technique of Paintings, The Technique of Painting, Scientific Principles of Divisionism and Of Painting. Technique and Art, writings that would prove fundamental to Umberto Boccioni and the Futurist investigations.

Appreciations in Italy and abroad.

By this time the artist had achieved great success in Italy, so much so that the Venice Biennale devoted two solo shows to him, one in 1901 with forty-six works and the second in 1912 with thirty-five works. In the one of 1901 we find works such as the oils Madonna of the Lilies, and the aforementioned Romeo and Juliet; the pastels Moonlight and Madonna; and the drawings The Day That Wakes the Night, Christ in the Temple, Double Murder in the Morgue Street-Rapture and Fallen Souls.

The Grubicy brothers also promoted Gaetano Previati’s art throughout Europe, in fact his works appeared at the Berlin Secession in 1902, the Munich Quadrennial in 1905, and the Salon des Peintres Divisionnistes Italiens, organized by Grubicy himself in 1907.

To these years also belongs the second version of Paolo e Francesca, completely distorted from the first: the two lifelessly portrayed bodies have become two souls entangled in Dante’s vortex.

Despite the artist’s great fame, Gaetano Previati abandoned painting in 1917 following the tragic deaths of his son and wife. He passed away three years later in 1920.

Emanuela Di Vivona