Achille Befani (1832–1906) was an Italian painter, best known as Achille Formis.

Biography

He was born in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

and embarked on a singing career there. This was abandoned in the early 1860s when he moved to

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

to attend courses of the

Brera Academy The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca d ...

of Fine Arts under the pseudonym ''Formis''. The works on Eastern subjects that he painted on his return from repeated travels in the Near East were highly esteemed. These were joined in the 1870s by landscapes set in the Lombard countryside and the area around Lake Maggiore, which made Formis a respected figure in the school of Lombard Naturalism alongside painters like

Eugenio Gignous Eugenio Gignous (4 August 1850 – 30 August 1906) was an Italian painter born in Milan, which when he was born was part of the Austrian Empire. Biography The son of a silk merchant from Lyon, Gignous displayed a precocious talent for painting an ...

, his friend since the years at the Brera. He took part in the annual Brera exhibitions and the Esposizione Nazionale Artistica of 1887 in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, where he returned in 1899 with a view of the countryside around

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard language, Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the Province of Mantua, province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture ...

. He also exhibited work in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

(1896) and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

in 1901 and 1906, the year of his death in Milan.

References

* Laura Casone
Achille Formis
online catalogu
Artgate
by

Fondazione Cariplo Fondazione Cariplo is a charitable foundation in Milan, Italy. It was created in December 1991 when the Amato law, Law no. 218 of 30 July 1990, came into force. Under this law, saving banks were required to separate into a not-for-profit foun ...

, 2010, CC BY-SA (source for the first revision of this article).

Other projects

{{DEFAULTSORT:Formis, Achille 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian painters 20th-century Italian male artists Italian landscape painters Brera Academy alumni Painters from Naples Painters from Milan 1832 births 1906 deaths 19th-century Italian male artists