Guido Cinotti

Guido Cinotti was born in Siena in 1870. Still very young, he decided to move to Milan to pursue a career as a painter. After attending courses at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, he made a name for himself as a landscape painter, initially approaching the lyrical naturalism of Filippo Carcano and, more generally, Lombard views.

He made his debut at the Milan Triennale in 1894, where he exhibited February-sunset and May flawers. In 1896 he appeared at the Permanente with First Frosts and the following year at the Triennale with Study of Pigs, a work that won him the Mylius Prize.

An evocative landscape: between Divisionism and vibrant, colourful touches

After this essentially verist debut, Guido Cinotti made a subtle change in the early years of the 20th century, when, influenced by Symbolist tendencies, he moved towards a calm Divisionism which is particularly noticeable in his mountain landscapes and which owes much to the poetics of Segantini and Longoni, whom he approached in his early years in Milan.

In 1906, he exhibited at the Milan Exhibition for the Sempione Tunnel, presenting the three suggestive views Solitude, Spring and Marina. During the first decades of the 20th century, his landscapes alternated between the use of Divisionist techniques and a chromaticism made up of spatula-like touches, rich in pictorial matter and light.

While continuing to participate assiduously in exhibitions in Milan, Guido Ginotti also devoted himself to some decorative works. He worked, for example, in the Teatro Lirico in Milan, working with the decorator Brugnoli. In 1910, he took part in the exhibition of Italian painters organised in Paris by Alberto Grubicy, while in 1916, he took part in the Brera Biennial with the lyrical landscape Birches, a painting that was later bought by the King.

Guido Cinotti was described as follows by Vincenzo Bucci on the occasion of the 1919 Arte Italiana Contemporanea exhibition at the Pesaro Gallery, where he exhibited together with Adolfo Wildt, Ambrogio Alciati and Aroldo Bonzagni: “The chromatic motif is the dominant motif of his paintings; and he carries it out with exquisite harmonies of low but opulent tones, and with a studious search for relationships, so that certain brighter notes acquire great intensity”.

Among the painter’s most significant works are Spring harmonies, The voice of the glacier, Porta Ticinese dock, The Varese Prealpi, Old Friends, The pond, paintings that stand out for their delicate Symbolist ardour.

After the exhibition at the Pesaro Gallery, the painter decided not to exhibit again. He continued to dedicate himself to painting away from the spotlight. Many of his works are conserved in private collections in Lombardy, including Il Catinaccio, reminiscent of Segantini and Böcklin at the same time, Beech forest, Cottages in Caspoggio and the Divisionist work Silence harmonies. He died in Milan in 1932.

Elena Lago