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).