Felice Casorati ( 1883 – 1963 )
Italian
painter, primarily of figure compositions, portraits and still
life, which are often distinguished by unusual perspective
effects.
Casorati was born in Novara and
showed an early interest in music and art. To please his parents
he studied law at the University of Padua until 1906, but his
ambition was to be a painter, an ambition confirmed in 1907 when
a painting of his was shown in the Venice Biennale. The works he
produced in the early years of his career are naturalistic in
style, but after 1910 the influence of the symbolists and
particularly of Gustav Klimt turned him toward a more visionary
approach.
In 1919, following his military
service in World War I he settled in Turin. His works of the
next decade typify, in their emphasis on geometry and formal
clarity, the "return to order" then prevalent in the arts as a
reaction to the war. Often working in tempera, Casorati drew
inspiration from his study of Renaissance masters, especially
Piero della Francesca, as in his 1922 portrait entitled Silvana
Cenni. This symmetrical composition of a seated woman in a white
dress is perhaps the best-known of the artist's works. In it,
the careful rendering of volumes results paradoxically in a
sense of unreality; this is characteristic of Casorati's art and
it connects him to the metaphysical painters.
Briefly arrested in 1923 for his
involvement with an anti-Fascist group, Casorati subsequently
avoided antagonizing the regime. After 1930 the severity of
Casorati's earlier style softened somewhat and his palette
brightened. He continued to exhibit widely, winning many awards,
including the First Prize at the Venice Biennale of 1938. He was
also involved in stage design. One of his famous students was
the Italian painter Enrico Accatino. He died in Turin in 1963.
Most of Casorati's important
works are in Italian collections, public and private, including
the Modern Art Revoltella Museum in Trieste and Galleria
Nazionale di Arte Moderna.
Works:
Paintings