Giuseppe De Nittis

Giuseppe Gaetano De Nittis (Barletta, 25 February 1846 - Saint-Germain-en-Laye, August 21, 1884) was an Italian painter near the artistic current of Verism and Impressionism.

Giuseppe Gaetano De Nittis was born in Barletta in 1846, Don Quixote of Don Raffaele De Nittis and woman Teresa Emanuela Barracchia. Before he was born, his father was arrested for political reasons, and as soon as he came out of prison two years later, he took his life away. He orphaned since childhood, grew up with his paternal grandparents, and after his apprenticeship with the baptist painter Giovanni Battista Calò, he entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples under the leadership of Mancinelli in 1861 against the will of the family And Gabriele Smargiassi.

Of indolence indifferent and unwilling to any type of scheme, he showed himself disinterested in academic notions and exercises, so much so that he was expelled indiscriminately two years later. Along with other painters, including Federico Rossano and Marco De Gregorio, he made his compositions in the open air (usually painted in Portici), specializing in the reproduction of porticos, parthenopees and bladders. In 1864 he was noticed by Adriano Cecioni and the following year he founded the Resin School, Italian current on the subject of realism.

In Florence, in 1866, he approached the Macchiaioli and, after turning Italy to Naples, Palermo, Barletta, Rome, Florence, Venice and Turin, moved to 1867 in Paris where he met Ernest Meissonier and Jean-Léon Gérôme and married Two years later the Parisian Léontine Lucile Gruvelle, which will greatly affect her husband's social and artistic choices.

The 1869 saw him exhibit for the first time at the Salon, but the pediculatory imitation of his Parisian colleagues made Cecioni infuriated, reminding him how his talent needed to be expressed with specific details. But Nittis immediately regained his artistic independence and gained great success at the Salon of '72 with the canvas A road from Brindisi to Barletta. In '74 he still had praise for that cold !, in which the usual refinement of the Pugliese artist was subjected to the young Parisian ladies, a theme he could integrate very well in landscape painting, deserving the title of peintre des Parisiennes (Parisian painter).

He touched the culmination of his fame at the exhibition of 1874, held in the studio of the photographer Nadar and commonly referred to as the date of birth of Impressionism. I exhibited five canvases according to Vittorio Pica and as is evident from the Catalog of Exhibitions where the titles of five works, from No. 115 to No. 119: Landscapes at Bois, appear; Moonlight; Campaign of Vesuvius; Woman study; Road in Italy. That year was then in London where he painted scenes from the life of the British capital.

The Parisian International Exhibition in 1878 gave great honors to De Nittis: it was honored with the Legion of Honor, while its work, The Tuileries Ruins, was purchased by the government for the Luxembourg Museum.

It was comparable to certain features of the Macchiaioli and the Impressionists, but it always maintained an independence of style and content.

He died in 1884 at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, struck by a fulminating brain stroke. He is buried in Paris, in the cemetery of Père-Lachaise.

In 2010, the Museum of the Petit Palais in Paris dedicated to De Nittis the great exhibition "De Nittis, the modern éléante".

Works: Nittis, 1883-1884
Lakeside landscape near Naples (1873)
Beach at Barletta
The Seine (pastel)
The Crossing of the Apennines (1867)
Along the Ofanto (1870)
The road from Naples to Brindisi (1872)
What a cold! (1874)
Place des Pyramides (1876)
Bridge over the Seine (1876)
The lady with the dog (1878)
Clouds are Westminster (1878)
Passing a Train (1879)
Winter Walk (1879)
Among the screens (1879)
Snow Effect (1880)
Woman figure (1880)
Sledding (1880)
Skating (1880)
The races at Auteuil (1881)
Lady in the garden (1883)
The Amazon (1874)
The ride (1875)
The races at Longchamps (1883)
Capricious Nightmare (Fan) (1883)
Breakfast in the garden (1883-1884)
On the hammock II (1884)
Stradino naphthenic, oil on canvas
Avenue du bois de boulogne (1874)
Flirtation (1874)
Leontoni in canotto (1874)
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