FRANCESCO GIOLI San Frediano a Settimo, 1846 - Florence, 1922 Courtship in the woods Signed F Gioli and dated 91 lower right Oil on canvas, 57.5X44 cm Francesco Gioli studied painting at the Accademia di Pisa with Annibale Mariani, then moved to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, where he attended courses held by Antonio Ciseri and Enrico Pollastrini. He then approached the Macchiaioli group, discovering the language of Giovanni Fattori and Telemaco Signorini and began experimenting with the observation of nature. In the 1960s, he was hosted by Diego Martelli at his estate in Castiglioncello to immerse himself in the Pisan countryside, while in the 1970s his villa in Fauglia became a meeting place for artists and men of letters. In 1870, he participated in a Paris Salon and stayed for a month in Paris attracted by the style of the Barbizon School. This moment coincided with a turning point in his pictorial production: he abandoned interior subjects of bourgeois taste in the manner of Fortuny and turned definitively towards landscape subjects. We can find in his canvases a skilful restitution of atmospheric effects, through the search for an intonation to which he entrusted the suggestion of the hour: the harmony of cold tones and strong contrasts between light and shade are thus the means by which the artist accentuated the lyricism of his compositions.