Carlo Cressini
Carlo Cressini was born in Genoa in 1864 to a well-off, cultured family. He studied with Enrico Gamba at the Albertina Academy of Turin and with Giuseppe Bertini at the Brera Academy in Milan. His exhibition debut was in 1884, and at the same time he formed close friendships with other painters (Longoni, Sottocornola, Mentessi, Belloni).
Starting from the standpoint of the post-scapigliatura school, he initially painted portraits and still lifes, but from 1886 began to devote his attention to landscapes, achieving his effects with flowing brushstrokes and subdued colours, following the example of Lombard naturalism.
In the 90s he painted studio portraits revealing his interest in the effects of light stimulated by divisionism; later on he was to paint some pictures of social art, but without any evident critical intention.
Cressini was a keen climber, and is known especially as “the high mountain specialist”; he began to paint mountain landscapes in the early 90s, mostly in Valtellina, Ossola and the Bernese Alps. In these pictures, from the second half of the first decade of the 20th century he used the Divisionist technique, applying his own criteria and never following the technique slavishly.
He died in Milan in 1938.
