Luigi Nono

Luigi Nono, an active painter from 1850 until 1918, was born in Fusina, and died in Venice, remembered primarily for his genre scenes which accorded dignity to the poor and to the life of the lagoon. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice under the tutelage of Pompeo Molmenti, yet under the early influence of Giacomo Favretto, the leading artist of Venetian Realism, from which he and Favretto would take a path that would quickly separate them. Nono was less interested in the sunny, lighthearted views of contemporary Venice that Favretto captured, and more in the grim, often tragic situations of derelict mothers, sick children, funerals, the silent despair of the working poor. His most famous picture, Refugium peccatorum (Refuge of the sinner), earned him a gold medal in Munich in 1884 and brought him fame throughout Italy and internationally. He became a knight in 1887 and in 1891 became honorary associate of the Brera Academy, exhibiting regularly from 1895 at the Venice Biennale, and was appointed Professor at the Venice Academy in 1899. The influence of his work today is linked with that of other Venetian Realists such as Favretto and Guglielmo Ciardi, and his grandson by the same name, a little by chance, became one of the most important composers of the 20th century working in the avant-garde style.

Read more about them