Luigi Monteverde

LUIGI MONTEVERDE (Switzerland, 1841- 1923).
"Leo Tolstoy".
Oil on canvas.
Presents inscription on the back.
Signed in the lower right corner. Signed on the back.
Measurements: 44 x 32 cm.
Portrait of great naturalism in which an old man of bust is represented on a neutral background. The face is the absolute protagonist of the work, magnificently modeled through a wise use of lights and shadows, with successful hallmarks that enhance the plasticity of the features. The character is treated with a dramatic and deep mysticism, and despite not showing any attribute, we could be in front of the representation of Leon Tolstoy.
Monteverde's childhood was spent in a geographically diverse and culturally rich environment, divided between the cities of Lugano, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. In this last urban nucleus, fundamental for his initial formation, he received his first artistic teachings from his older brother, who worked as a painter and decorator, and who introduced him early on to the rudiments of drawing, composition and decorative pictorial techniques.
In 1870, motivated by a desire for academic improvement and direct contact with the great European pictorial traditions, he undertook a decisive trip to Milan, one of the cultural capitals of northern Italy. There he entered as an apprentice in the workshop of the renowned history painter Antonio Barzaghi-Cattaneo, whose teachings contributed significantly to refining his mastery of academic drawing and his sensitivity for visual narrative. At the same time, he enrolled at the prestigious Brera Academy of Fine Arts, an institution that at the time enjoyed great international prestige and which gave him access to a systematic and rigorous training in the disciplines of classical art, as well as contact with the most up-to-date pictorial currents of the time.
Although his time at the Milanese academy exposed him to a variety of genres and styles, Monteverde became particularly famous for his predilection for scenes of rural life, which he approached with a detailed sensitivity and a keen sense of observation. His work is characterized by a remarkable ability to capture the atmosphere, light and everyday nuances of the countryside, endowing his compositions with both a poetic and ethnographic dimension. He also successfully cultivated the still life genre, in which he stood out for his technical delicacy, the subtle treatment of chiaroscuro and the precision in the representation of textures and objects.