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ilippo Carcano  (Milano, 1840 -1914)

Italian painter.

He enrolled in 1857 at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, where he was taught by Francesco Hayez and Giuseppe Bertini, and where he became friendly with Tranquillo Cremona. Carcano's talent was immediately evident and he won many prizes. In 1860 he presented a large-scale history painting, Federico Barbarossa and the Duke Enrico Leone at Chiavenna (Milan, Brera), which clearly reveals the influence of his teachers. On leaving the Accademia, however, Carcano became interested both in the new Realism and in the techniques of GLI SCAPIGLIATI. In 1860 he visited both London and Paris, examining the recent work of both English and French landscape painters. Carcano first experimented with interior scenes, genre scenes and sentimental subjects. One of his most impressive early works, remarkable for its freshness of approach, is the Dancing Class (1865; Turin, Gal. Civ. A. Mod.). On exhibition in 1865 the painting provoked strong reactions: in its almost photographic approach to detail and its unusual treatment of light and shade it marks a bold departure from Carcano's previous academic style. In 1867 he exhibited Game of Billiards (Milan, Brera). This also provoked considerable debate because of its style, which included a rudimentary form of the painting technique of the Divisionists in parts of the composition. Among the distinctly sentimental subjects in Carcano's early work is the Goodhearted Boys (1878; Milan, Brera).