CESARE MAGGI Rome, 1881 - Turin, 1961 View of Macugnana Signed C Maggi 919 top right Oil on panel, 28X41 cm Provenance: Turin, Aprato Gallery Turin, private collection Exhibitions: Solo exhibition Figure e paesaggi di Cesare Maggi, Associazione Piemonte artistico e culturale, Galleria della Gazzetta del Popolo, Turin 1959 no. 24 p. 17 From a very young age, Cesare Maggi showed a strong talent for painting and began to frequent the studio of Leghorn painter Vittorio Corcos, from whom he learnt the care of drawing and sensitivity to light modulations. He then moved to Naples, where he studied with Gaetano Esposito, deepening his knowledge of colour techniques and his interest in the atmospheric rendering of landscapes. His official debut took place in 1898 at the Annual Exhibition of the Society of Fine Arts in Florence, where he presented works that already revealed a remarkable expressive maturity. In the same year he made a brief but significant stay in Paris, where he came into contact with the new trends of Impressionism and with the research on light that was transforming European painting. He regularly participated in the main Italian and European exhibitions, gaining public and critical acclaim. In 1912, an entire room was dedicated to him at the Venice Biennale, an acknowledgement that sanctioned his role as a protagonist of early 20th century Italian painting. His painting is distinguished by a refined chromatic sensitivity; his brushstrokes, initially firm and constructive, are progressively enveloped by thin veils that soften the form, neutralise and refine it, giving his works a sense of lyrical suspension. The landscape, often mountainous or snowy, becomes for Maggi an inner motif, a metaphor for the human condition, where nature reflects emotions and moods. Throughout his career, Maggi remained faithful to the luministic quest and poetic value of the landscape, elaborating a personal pictorial language of great coherence and sensitivity... Reference bibliography: U Malvano, Cesare Maggi, in Catalogo della X Biennale di Venezia, Venice 1912, ad vocem R Simoni, Cesare Maggi, in Catalogo della personale, Livorno 1930, ad vocem G L Marini, Cesare Maggi, Turin 1983, ad vocem R Miracco, Luce e pittura in Italia (1850-1914), Milan 2003, ad vocem