(Rome 1872 – 1947)

 

Giovanni Battista Costantini, better known as Giovanni Costantini, revealed a quite extraordinary talent for drawing and painting from an early age. He trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, where he had the opportunity to hone his skills and develop his own unique style. Influenced by the artistic currents of the time, including Realism and Divisionism, he evolved a manner all his own that stood out for the vibrant rendering of the colours and a sensitivity to the subjects tackled. In 1892, with a series of landscapes of the Roman countryside, he participated in an exhibition of the “Società Amatori e Cultori di Belle Arti” (“Association of Amateurs and Connoisseurs of Fine Arts”). He occasionally attended the life-drawing evening classes at the Académie Française in Villa Medici, and started producing works visibly influenced by Giulio Aristide Sartorio.

In 1904, he joined a group founded by the latter, the XXV della Campagna Romana, where he was given the nickname “Grillo” (“Cricket” [insect]) because of his slender figure and his “tall, thin and wiry” appearance. That same year, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome purchased his painting Dai Campi di Riposo, and then, in 1908, Folla Triste. He taught at the Accademia di Belle Arti and from 1909 was a member of the Accademia di San Luca.

What brought him to the general public’s attention was his series of war paintings, grand theatrical works featuring strong contrasts of light and shade, in which the artist expressed all of his antimilitarism. The complete cycle of 45 works, entitled “Le Lacrime della Guerra” (“Tears of War”), was exhibited at the First Art Biennial of Rome in 1921 (Figs. 1 - 2).

 

Fig. 1 Le Lacrime della Guerra. Ritorno alla Vita

Fig. 2 Le Lacrime della Guerra. Il Piano d’Attacco

Fig. 3 Portrait of Giovanni Costantini

 

Costantini’s painting, which was grounded in in-depth technical knowledge, has a more instinctive and less formal appearance in the works of his early youth, while, especially in the series of war paintings, it later became tinged with a certain theatricality in the contrasts of light and shade.

Especially in the first phase of his artistic career, his works were characterized by a combination of Realism and Impressionism. This is quite evident in the painting presented here which appears, to all intents and purposes, a self-portrait of the painter himself in his studio, leafing through his drawings, and encircled by sketches and brushes. This hypothesis also seems plausible thanks to a portrait of the artist (Fig. 3). In the latter image, albeit not clear, the resemblance of this portrait with the subject of our painting is perfectly comprehensible.