Studio: international art (37.1906)

Angelo Dair Oca Bianca

I'ORTRAIT BY A. PALL' OCA HIANCA

merely a painter ; he is an artist of high equipment,
who can grasp a page of Flaubert or a lyric by
Carducci just as he can penetrate into the mystery
of the subtlest scene from real life.

Among the canvases now reproduced, those
entitled Quadriglia ("The Quadrille"), dated 1887,
Foglie Cadenti, or "Falling Leaves" (1896), and
Agnello (" The Lamb "), express, in a manner that
makes long commentary superfluous, the painter's
tendencies and the intimate nature of his art from
the time when his spirit soared into the regions of
fancy and meditation. Nor should his Prima
Messa (" Early Mass"), whose subject recalls one
of Segantini's paintings, be passed by in silence,
for it is truly a love-scene—a scene of Verona, of
infinite expressiveness and quite Virgilian charm.
This canvas, which won a premium at the last Paris
Exhibition, was purchased by the Berlin Gallery;
and of the others, one gained a prize at Antwerp,
and another, likewise firimt, is now in the
Barcelona Gallery. These pictures apart, the
handiwork of DalP Oca is profoundly impressed
on his painting of the Piazza dell' JErl>e, one of
the most picturesque spots in Verona—that town
which ever excites the imagination of the poet—
that " Florence of Northern Italy," as it was lately
styled by Dr. G. Biermann.

The evolution of Dall; Oca gave his heart not
merely a new technical delicacy, but fresh poetic
substance ; that is to say, pictorial finesse belongs
to the Dall' Oca of the second manner; the
dazzling light of his earliest canvases betrays a
certain superficiality of execution, while the can-
vases of more recent date, especially the Poesia
Pastorale ("Pastoral Poetry," 1903), differ not
only technically but intellectually in a most
marked degree. In this last-named picture Dall'
Oca, side by side with an exquisitely pensive
fancy, rising to romanticism, displays a sympathy
with the luminous and the pointille.

The last word as to the art of Dall' Oca is
proclaimed by these last canvases of his; and,
disposed as he may be towards every perfection,
it is certain that his personality will be fixed by

"THE WOODCUTTER" BY R. F. WELLS

(See nexl article)

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