Studio: international art (57.1913)

Studio-Talk

practice of achieving gradations of tone as it were
by means of complementary colours instead of
with the primaries. Thus by degrees he has come
to develop his own method of painting, which,
coupled with a poetic sensibility, proved of signal
value to him when, turning his back on studio
painting and all that was bound up therewith, he
took wing and flew to the highlands.

Here it was that Carozzi found all those aspects
of nature that really appealed to him—the lyrical,
the sublime, the awe-inspiring. The mountains
present some very remarkable effects : rosy-hued
crests which when the sun is shining upon them
radiate a gorgeous flood of light, gigantic rocks,
abysmal ravines and gorges, snow of dazzling white-
ness, and glaciers whose crystalline surface acts
like a prism; the spectacle changes with the change
of atmospheric conditions, and oftentimes is not
the same for two minutes together. Here amidst
these mountain solitudes the artist feels free, and
rarely or never does there escape from his lips any

Besides Fontanesi there are two other
painters who have exercised an influence
on Carozzi—Filippo Carcano, still
living, and the famous Segantini, who
lies buried among the mountains he
loved to haunt and depict. To the
latter Carozzi owes a good deal in the
way of technique, although it must be
recorded that he has never accepted
“ divisionism ” as a tenet of his creed
as a painter, but has mostly made a

other modes of locomotion make transport so easy,
throng the sides and slopes every season there may
be many on whom the fascination of the mountains
makes but a superficial impression, to whom they
are but a distraction, one of the “ sights ” that, like so
many others, have to be seen by all who can afford
to travel. Far otherwise, however, is it with those
poets who have given utterance to the sublime feel-
ings of awe experienced in presence of these soaring
heights, and those painters who with their brushes
have endeavoured to express these same feelings
on canvas. Thus is it with the Italian painter
Giuseppe Carozzi, whose mountain landscapes form
such a distinguished feature in modern Italian art.

Carozzi is a native of Milan, and at this moment
is at the full tide of manhood. He was originally
destined for the medical profession, and later on
embarked on the study of the law, but neither of
these callings proved congenial, and finally his
impulsive, manly nature bade him turn with enthu-
siastic ardour to painting. At the outset of
his career as an artist he used to paint
genre pictures, finding his motives in the
fishing village of Chioggia, which was
then only just coming into repute as a
centre for artists. Not much was being
done there at that time; the tastes of
the purchasing public were held in too
much esteem, and the “ pretty ” picture,
the anecdotic subject, held the upper
hand. Nor did Carozzi himself yield
of his best, but as a talented pupil of
the great Antonio Fontanesi (1818-82)
he distinguished himself above the rest;
the pictures he painted at this period
possess a peculiar charm of tone that
was lacking in the work of these, and
that even at this stage his excellence
was recognised is shown by the pur-
chase of one of these early works by
the Modern Gallery of Rome in 1887.

“ VECCHIA FO .'TANA SOTTO LA LUNA ” (OLD WELL IN MOONLIGHT)
BY GIUSEPPE CAROZZI

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