Marco Gozzi

Marco Gozzi was born in 1759 in San Giovanni Bianco, a town in the province of Bergamo, into a family of humble origins. Given his precocious artistic talents, he began training with the Bergamo painter Corneo. He probably also had contact with the Roman artist Francesco Fidanza, where he served his apprenticeship, but this is not entirely certain. He certainly started a study of the works of the Roman painter because the influence on the young man’s language is clear.

The heterogeneous activity of the early years

His early production is varied, ranging from sacred themes to portraits; from decorative cycles to genre scenes.

In 1792, he moved to Caiolo in the province of Sondrio and obtained a number of commissions, including that for the Portrait of the priest Cristino de Cristini della Torre, portrayed three-quarter-length in an oval with a book and a letter, according to a traditional iconology in the Bergamo area.

At the end of the 1890s, he began to devote himself purely to landscape painting, executing tempera paintings for a room in the former Caccia-Goisis villa in Redona, in the Bergamo area, depicting airy landscapes, following the taste of the 18th-century Venetian tradition.

Landscape painting: between academic tradition and verist stimuli

At the beginning of the 19th century, however, he went to Milan where he stayed for several years and here he obtained a very advantageous contract with the government of the Kingdom of Italy at that time run by Viceroy Eugenio di Beaurnhais. In fact, he received an annual pension in exchange for three landscape paintings per year. He therefore concentrated his interest on this pictorial genre, initially influenced by the manner of Claude Lorrain. The classical and academic landscape then gave way to a more spontaneous and mimetic rendering of reality, also introducing the emotional element.

In the 1910s, he undertook study trips between Rome, Naples and the Marche region, bringing home studies and sketches of the views he admired. Between 1813 and 1820, he took part in several exhibitions at the Brera Academy, proving to be an important mediator between the classical and the verist or romantic tradition.

A chronicler of Austrian urban planning activity in Italy

Even after the Restoration, the artist retained his position with the Austrian government, and for the latter he produced several landscape paintings of the Lombardy region, as well as views of roads and new infrastructures, documenting the Austrian government’s work on Italian territory.

Examples of these views are the 1809 painting La fonderia di cannoni a Caionvico, now in the Brera Art Gallery collection; Campagna lombarda or Rovine di un castello, works now far removed from academic rigidity and open to verist influences. In the 1920s, he also produced canvases such as Veduta dell’Orrido di Nesso, Paesaggio con ferriera, Veduta della imperiale regia villa di Monza and Veduta del ponte sul Devero a Cevola; while Rocce con cascata, Torrente in Valsesia, Galleria da Varenna a Bellano, Madonna della Sassella sulla strada dello Stelvi and Foresta con personaggi belong to the production of the 1930s.

His activity for the government continued until the last days of his life. The artist died in 1839 in Bergamo.

Emanuela Di Vivona