Silvestro Lega

Silvestro Lega ( born December 8, 1826 in Modigliana, † November 21, 1895 in Florence) was an Italian painter of realism.

Life

Lega came from a wealthy family and studied from 1884 to 1847 at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence. As an ardent follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Father Giovanni Verità (1807-1885), he participated in the struggle for independence 1848/49 part ( Battle of Curtatone and Montanara ). He then continued his studies in Florence at Antonio Ciseri.

He made a name for himself by large-format images such as the infidel Thomas in Ospitale Civico in Modigliania (1858 ). The macchiaioli, a group of Florentine painters who rejected academic painting, he joined relatively late in 1861. In 1863, he painted in the Oratory of the Madonna del Cantone Modigliani in the lunettes plague, famine, war, earthquake. He then joined the macchiaioli close to (especially the mediation of Telemaco Signorini ) and painted as this landscape and genre pictures outdoors. You were there the guests Batelli family in Pergentina. In the 1870s, met him several blows. First Virginia Batelli and her brothers died, 1876 was his art dealer (which he had with the painter ODOARDO Borrani ) bankrupt and in 1880 he got an eye condition. He lived for five years with his student Tommasi in Bella Riva and from 1886 at the family Bandini in Poggiopoiano al gabbro at Livorno. He was poor and lonely and suffering from stomach cancer, but remained active as a painter.

Gallery

La lettura, 1864

Ragazza di Crespina, 1870

Eleonora Tommasi, 1881

Portrait of a Lady, 1882

In giardino, 1883

Tra i fiori del giardino, 1883

La Pergola, 1868

Alla Villa di Poggio Piano, 1885

Return of the Bersaglieri of an exploratory, 1861

The mother

Scene in Piagentina, 1863

Farmers in gabbro

The Curious 1866

Sleep of innocence

Portraits

Lega while painting by Giovanni Fattori