Vincenzo Cabianca

Vincenzo Cabianca (1827–1883) was an Italian painter, born in Verona and considered one of the most staunch and experimental of the Florentine painters known as Macchiaioli, who broke with academic tradition for their free and direct approach to the depiction of light and shadow. He was initially trained in Verona and Venice, and found himself on a fairly traditional path of religious and historical paintings, but by the 1850s he had moved to Florence where, at the Caffè Michelangiolo, he became familiar with other painters, such as his friend Telemaco Signorini and Odoardo Boranni, and this shift in his personal circle of friends opened him to Realism. One of his own Macchiaioli colleagues, Cecioni, described him as “the most declared, violent and uninhibited macchiaiolo”, a statement which encapsulates his adherence to the tenets of the movement and his special interest in the impact of intense Mediterranean sunshine. As well as being artistically radical, he was also politically active and was jailed in 1848 for participating in the defence of Bologna during the events of revolution that accompanied the unification of Italy. He continued his painting and exhibited activity until the 1890s, alternating between Florence, Parma, Rome and finally permanently settling in Rome where he died in 1902.

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