Roberto Fontana (1844–1907) - Bottle time

Roberto Fontana, Milan 1844–1907
The Hour of the Baby Bottle. dimensions with frame 54×42 cm
work published

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FONTANA, Roberto

He was born in Milan on 10 April 1844. After abandoning classical studies, he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he attended A. Bramati’s etching courses and the painting courses of G. Bertini and C. Notaris. He made his debut in the tradition of historical romanticism with the work Geltrude confusa scorge la lettera in mano al principe suo padre, taken from I promessi sposi, at the 25th Exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Turin in 1866 (catalog., p. 14). He soon turned to genre subjects as well: at the Brera Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1872 (catalog., p. 53) he presented the painting Ispezione alla persona della fidanzata. costume russo, which earned him the praise of C. Boito (1877) and notable popularity through numerous chromolithographic reproductions.

It was thanks to his production of genre paintings that Fontana, author of historical subjects, small landscapes and portraits, gained the favor of the public of his time. The depiction of situations and affections of daily and family life, rendered with a certain illustrative complacency and marked by an intimate, highly sentimental tone reflecting the painting of T. Cremona, characterizes Fontana’s production, whose popularity was largely due to his alignment with the bourgeois concept of art in the late nineteenth century. He was influenced by the Milanese Scapigliatura milieu and, in particular, by Cremona, from whom he borrowed the softened luminism but not the impulsive brushwork; instead he used the painter’s followers’ thickly mixed color technique. He also produced, less well known, etchings: among these are remembered Portrait of a Woman, Portrait of a Man, Woman Reading (Comanducci, 1971).