Roberto Fontana (1844–1907) - Bottle time

Roberto Fontana Milanese 1844 – 1907 The Bottle-Feeding Hour. Framed dimensions 54x42 cm
Work published

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FONTANA, Roberto

He was born in Milan on April 10, 1844. After abandoning classical studies, he enrolled at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, where he attended engraving courses by A. Bramati and painting courses by G. Bertini and C. Notaris. He made his debut in the line of the tradition of historical romanticism by presenting the work Geltrude confusedly gazes at the letter in her father's hand, the prince, taken from I promessi sposi, at the 25th Exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts of Turin in 1866 (catalog., p. 14) - He soon turned to genre subjects as well: at the Brera Fine Arts Exhibition of 1872 (catalog., p. 53) he presented the painting Inspection of the bride’s person. Russian costume, which earned him the appreciation of C. Boito (1877) and considerable popularity through numerous chromolithographic reproductions.

It was thanks to the production of genre paintings that Fontana, author of historical subjects, small landscapes and portraits, won 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 and markedly sentimental tone that reflects the painting of T. Cremona, characterizes Fontana’s output, whose popularity was largely due to his alignment with the bourgeois conception of art in the second half of the nineteenth century. He was influenced by the Milanese Scapigliatura milieu and, in particular, by Cremona, from whom he adopted the softened luminosity but not the impulsive technique, preferring the brushstrokes, instead, the “impasto” color technique used by some followers of the painter. He also produced, less well known, etchings: among these are remembered Portrait of a Woman, Portrait of a Man, Woman Reading (Comanducci, 1971).