Gaetano Chierici was an Italian painter born in Reggio Emilia in 1838.
“The setting in the interior of a humble peasant kitchen, populated by children intent on their daily activities, is representative of that small world of happy images, far from any desire for social denunciation, constant in the genre painting of Chierici, also defined painter of micro-history.”
Gaetano Chierici attended the Reggio Emilia School of Fine Arts in 1850 and 1851, and he continued his studies at the academies of Modena and Florence before completing his training in Bologna under the guidance of Giulio Cesare Ferrari.
Gaetano Chierici’s early work was influenced by the Neo-classicism of his uncle Alfonso Chierici and Adeodato Malatesta, but subsequently by the innovations of the Macchiaioli painters, and it was in the late 1860s that he took up anecdotal genre painting with domestic interiors, which became his field of specialisation.
Gaetano Chierici’s participation in the Fine Arts Expositions at the Brera Academy of 1869 marked the beginning of his success with critics and collectors, though his work subsequently declined into mechanical repetition of the same subjects, and he was the director of the Workers’ School of Drawing in Reggio Emilia from 1882 to 1907.
Gaetano Chierici was the city’s first Socialist mayor from 1900 to 1902, and his canvases depict images of laughing family life, as seen in works like The good stepmother, The ugly joke, and The cobbler’s son, which are representative of that small world of happy images constant in his genre painting.
Gaetano Chierici’s scenes take place around the hearth, the center of family life, where children eat simple plates of pasta and beans and carry out daily tasks like spinning wool, and the objects described in minute detail are typical of rural life, including the cupboard, steelyard, oil lamp, and the life of “Il Pescatore Reggiano” which marks the time of the peasants based on the alternation of the seasons.
- Born in Reggio Emilia in 1838.
- Studied under Giulio Cesare Ferrari in Bologna.
- He was influenced by the Macchiaioli painters.
- Director of the Workers’ School of Drawing for 25 years.
- He was Reggio Emilia’s first Socialist mayor.
Gaetano Chierici’s work depicts the simple games of childhood and the life of peasants, and his paintings are characterized by a focus on happy images without social denunciation, making him a painter of micro-history who captured the essence of rural Italian life in the 19th century.
Art Category Fact: Macchiaioli is an Italian art movement that emerged in the 1850s in Florence, characterized by a focus on capturing light and color through bold patches of color, or “macchie,” breaking away from academic conventions, with key figures including Giovanni Fattori and Telemaco Signorini, and it influenced the development of Impressionism in France and later Italian art.
“Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” — Pablo Picasso
