Antonio Donghi (March 16, 1897 – July 16, 1963) was an Italian painter of scenes of popular life, landscapes, and still life.

Biography

Born in

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

, he studied painting at the Instituto di Belle Arti from 1908 to 1916.Gale, Oxford Art Online. After military service in

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

he studied art in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

and

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

, soon establishing himself as one of Italy's leading figures in the neoclassical movement that arose in the 1920s. Possessed of an extremely refined technique, Donghi favored strong composition, spatial clarity, and populist subject matter.Cowling and Mundy 1990, p. 102. His figures possess a gravity and an archaic stiffness reminiscent of

Piero della Francesca Piero della Francesca ( , ; ; ; – 12 October 1492) was an Italian Renaissance painter, Italian painter, mathematician and List of geometers, geometer of the Early Renaissance, nowadays chiefly appreciated for his art. His painting is charact ...

. Critics likened his work to that of

Henri Rousseau Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910)
at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Gug ...

and

Georges Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , ; ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough ...

, whose scenes of contemporary life are similarly touched with a subtle humor. His still lifes often consist of a small vase of flowers, depicted with the disarming symmetry of

naive art Naivety (also spelled naïvety), naiveness, or naïveté is the state of being naive. It refers to an apparent or actual lack of experience and sophistication, often describing a neglect of pragmatism in favor of Deontology, moral idealism. A ''na ...

. Donghi achieved both popular and critical success. In 1925,

Franz Roh Franz Roh (21 February 1890 – 30 December 1965), was a German historian, photographer, and art critic. Roh is perhaps best known for his 1925 book ''Nach-Expressionismus: Magischer Realismus: Probleme der neuesten europäischen Malerei'' ("Pos ...

named him among the major Italian artists in the new

magic realism Magical realism, magic realism, or marvelous realism is a style or genre of fiction and art that presents a realistic view of the world while incorporating magical elements, often blurring the lines between speculation and reality. ''Magical re ...

tendency. In 1927 Donghi won First Prize in an International Exhibit at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. By the 1940s, Donghi's work was far outside the mainstream of

modernism Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

, and his reputation declined, although he continued to exhibit regularly. In his last years he concentrated mainly on landscapes, painted in a style that emphasizes linear patterns. He died in Rome in 1963. Most of Donghi's works are in Italian collections, notably the

Museo di Roma The Museo di Roma is a museum in Rome, Italy, part of the network of Roman civic museums. The museum was founded in the Fascist era with the aim of documenting the local history and traditions of the "old Rome" that was rapidly disappearing, but ...

Notes

References

*Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer (1990). ''On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910-1930''. London: Tate Gallery. *Gale, Matthew. "Donghi, Antonio". ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press.

External links

Ten Dreams Galleries
{{DEFAULTSORT:Donghi, Antonio 1897 births 1963 deaths 20th-century Italian painters 20th-century Italian male artists Italian male painters Italian landscape painters