Giuseppe Mascarini (Bologna 1877 - Milan 1954)
Oil on canvas painting, 88 x 117.5 cm
Signed lower left
Dated 1919
Published on page 189, plate 319 of the book "Giuseppe Mascarini 1877-1954. A Palette Between Two Centuries" Skira editore - Milan 2016
He lived and worked always in Milan. He studied at the Brera Academy. Gifted for drawing and painting, he won prizes in 1896 and 1897 when he participated for the first time in the Brera exhibitions.
In 1900 the Academy appointed him "Honorary Member" and later he was called to be part of the permanent painting commission. He spent the early years of the century in Paris where he studied the painting of the great masters of the past and followed the new pictorial trends that were advancing in the climate of general renewal. Influences of themes such as symbolism, divisionism, can be found in his paintings of the first decades of the 20th century. Belonging to this period are the large canvases "The Dream" 1909, "The Visitor" 1909, "Ancient Ballad" 1916 and the great alpine landscapes where the tripartition of the horizons, the divisionism, the skies that lead to infinity, the visual perception bring back reminiscences of Puvis Chevannes, Hodler and Segantini.
Mascarini loves the mountains and during the summer stays the beautiful Val Bregaglia is the setting for many landscapes represented by him. But there is not only the landscape painting for Mascarini but also that of figure because nature and humanity are in him two equally alive terms, both generators of inspiration.
In his figure paintings, he prefers to observe rather than interpret arbitrarily, to stay as close as possible to the subject rather than load it with extreme meanings. His brushstrokes, the force of the drawing and the warmth always suggest a vision of serene and familiar calm, a warm unity of tone, a measure, a contained and spontaneous impetus.
