Adriano Cecioni (July 26, 1836May 23, 1886) was an Italian artist, caricaturist, and critic associated with the

Macchiaioli The Macchiaioli () were a group of Italian painters active in Tuscany in the second half of the nineteenth century. They strayed from antiquated conventions taught by the Italian art academies, and did much of their painting outdoors in order to ...

group.

Biography

He was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

into a middle-class family belonging to the local

gentry Gentry (from Old French ''genterie'', from ''gentil'', "high-born, noble") are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Word similar to gentle imple and decentfamilies ''Gentry'', in its widest c ...

. He began his artistic training in 1859 at the Florentine Academy under the sculptor Aristodemo Costoli. In that same year he fought alongside

Telemaco Signorini Telemaco Signorini (; August 18, 1835 – February 10, 1901) was an Italian artist who belonged to the group known as the Macchiaioli. Biography He was born in the Santa Croce quarter of Florence, and showed an early inclination toward the st ...

in the

Second Italian War of Independence The Second Italian War of Independence, also called the Franco-Austrian War, the Austro-Sardinian War or Italian War of 1859 ( it, Seconda guerra d'indipendenza italiana; french: Campagne d'Italie), was fought by the Second French Empire and t ...

.Steingräber & Matteucci 1984, p. 108 In 1860 he participated in a competition to provide military artworks for the Tuscan government. His submission, a maquette for a statue of

Charles Albert of Savoy Charles Albert (; 2 October 1798 – 28 July 1849) was the King of Sardinia from 27 April 1831 until 23 March 1849. His name is bound up with the first Italian constitution, the Albertine Statute, and with the First Italian War of Independen ...

, won a prize but was deemed unsatisfactory by academicians and was not commissioned.Oxford Art Online In 1863 Cecioni received a grant and went to Naples, where he was instrumental in the formation of the artists' group '' Scuola di Resina'', which included

Giuseppe De Nittis Giuseppe De Nittis (February 25, 1846 – August 21, 1884)Efrem Gisella Calingaert. "De Nittis, Giuseppe." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 9 Aug. 2013. was one of the most important Italian painters of the 19th c ...

, Marco de Gregorio, and Federico Rossano. A major work of this period was his sculpture ''The Suicide'', which he exhibited at the Florence Academy in 1867. In 1872 Cecioni spent six months in London, where he contributed a series of caricatures to '' Vanity Fair'' magazine. After he returned to Italy, the sculptures he produced for the rest of his career were mainly

genre works Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, work, and street scenes. Such representations (also called genre works, ...

, often humorous in nature. He also painted domestic scenes. In 1884 he became Professor of Drawing at the Istituto di Magistero Femminile. Cecioni's activities as an art critic, which began in the 1870s, consumed an increasing amount of his time in his later years. He died of a heart attack on May 23, 1886. His work is in collections including Galleria d'arte moderna di

Palazzo Pitti The Palazzo Pitti (), in English sometimes called the Pitti Palace, is a vast, mainly Renaissance, palace in Florence, Italy. It is situated on the south side of the River Arno, a short distance from the Ponte Vecchio. The core of the present ...

, Florence; Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Rome; Museo statale d'arte medievale e moderna, Arezzo; and

Pinacoteca di Brera The Pinacoteca di Brera ("Brera Art Gallery") is the main public gallery for paintings in Milan, Italy. It contains one of the foremost collections of Italian paintings from the 13th to the 20th century, an outgrowth of the cultural program of ...

, Milan. His writings were anthologized in ''Scritti e ricordi'' (1905).

Gallery

File:Le faccende di casa by Adriano Cecioni 1869.jpg, ''Housework'', 1869 File:La zia Erminia by Adriano Cecioni.jpg, ''Aunt Erminia'', ca. 1867/70 File:Interior with a figure by Cecioni.jpg, ''Interior with a Figure'', 1868 File:The Interrupted Game by Cecioni.jpg, ''The Interrupted Game'' (1863/67) File:Samuel Morley, Vanity Fair, 1872-06-15.jpg, Samuel Morley. Caricature published in '' Vanity Fair'', 1872

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cecioni, Adriano 1836 births 1886 deaths Italian caricaturists 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 19th-century Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors Vanity Fair (British magazine) artists Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze alumni 19th-century Italian male artists

Biography

Gallery

References

Further reading

External links