Giovanni Boldini
Italian, 1842-1931
Italian painter, draftsman, landscapist, portraitist, engraver, etcher, printmaker & pastellist
born 1842 - died 1931
Born in: Ferrara (Emilia-Romagna, Italy).
Died in: Paris (Departement de Ville de Paris, Ile-de-France, France).
Friend of:Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Giovanni Boldini (December 31, 1842 ?July 11, 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter, belonging to the Parisian school. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the "Master of Swish" because of his flowing style of painting.
Boldini was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and went to Florence in 1862 to study painting, meeting there the realist painters known as the Macchiaioli. Their influence is seen in Boldini's landscapes which show his spontaneous response to nature, although it is for his portraits that he became best known. He attained great success in London as a portraitist.
From 1872 Boldini lived in Paris, where he became a friend of Edgar Degas. He also became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century, with a dashing style of painting which shows some Impressionist influence but which most closely resembles the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Paul Helleu. He was nominated commissioner of the Italian section of the Paris Exposition in 1889, and received the Legion d'honneur for this appointment. He died in Paris in 1931.
Born in Ferrara, Italy on 31st December 1842, Boldini received his initial training from his father, a painter and restorer. A precocious talent, Boldini attended the Accademia di Belle Arti (Academy of Fine Arts) in Florence in 1862. There he met the circle of Tuscan realist painters, known as the Macchiaioli, developing a particularly close friendship with Telemaco Signorini and Christiano Banti. They were a considerable influence on Boldini and introduced him to painting from nature, contemporaneous with the Barbizon painters of France.
During a visit to Paris for the Exposition Universelle in 1867, Boldini was greatly influenced by the paintings of Courbet, Manet and Degas, artists with whom he later established lifelong friendships. While in Paris, Boldini was captivated by what he considered to be the cultural capital of Europe and moved there permanently in October 1871, settling in the Place Pigalle. During this period he painted a series of small-scale works of eighteenth-century and Empire scenes, commissioned by Adolphe Goupil and other Parisian dealers, but also concentrated on scenes of Parisian life and pictures of elegantly dressed women, many of which were also sold by Goupil. Boldini was accepted as one of the foremost portrait painters of the Belle Epoque in Paris during the 1890s. His unique style set him apart from his contemporaries. "Though he remained essentially Paris-based, Boldini occasionally made trips to London to paint some of Sargent's sitters... Boldini had perfected a 'whiplash' style by which the model appeared to be thrown onto the canvas... All his nervous energy... was thrown at the canvas." (Kenneth McConkey, Edwardian Portraits, London, 1987, p.36).
Boldini died in Paris on 12th January 1931.
The son of a minor painter and restorer in Ferrara, Giovanni Boldini arrived in 1862 in Florence, where he enrolled in the Accademia. He soon came into contact with the Macchiaioli, a group of artists opposed to the strict teachings of the academic system, and from them was inspired to paint out of doors. Prominent among his early works are a series of landscape frescoes for the Villa 멛a Falconiera? near Pistoia, painted by Boldini in 1870. His preference was for portraits, however, and from the earliest years of his career he displayed a remarkable talent as a portrait painter. During a trip to London in 1870 he was able to obtain several portrait commissions, and by 1871 he had settled in Paris, taking a studio on the Place Pigalle and making his public debut in 1874 at the Salon de Mars. He began to paint society portraits and soon developed a reputation for his dazzling, elegant depictions of the fashionable society women of Paris, executed with a virtuoso technique of bold, fluid brushstrokes. Within a few years he had risen to a position of prominence in Parisian art circles, and enjoyed an exclusive contract with the eminent art dealer Adolphe Goupil, for whom he produced small, brightly coloured 18th century costume pieces that were popular with the dealer뭩 Parisian clientele. Boldini befriended other society portrait painters, such as Paul-Cesar Helleu, John Singer Sargent and James A. McNeill Whistler, and was also friendly with two of the greatest draughtsmen of the day, Adolph von Menzel and Edgar Degas; the latter is said to have once told the artist, 밮ous etes un monstre de talent!? By the turn of the century Boldini had become the most sought-after portrait painter in Belle Epoque Paris, achieving such success that his reputation rivalled that of his friend Sargent in London.
