Alessandro Castelli

Alessandro Castelli (Rome, 1809 – 1902) studied with his uncle, the watercolorist Simone Pomardi, then at the Accademia di San Luca.

A vast collection of drawings, kept in the National Drawing Room, includes academic studies of figures, studies from life, plants, animals, landscapes; numerous are the studies of figures of fishermen, shepherds and peasants.

Alessandro Castelli fought in the defense of the Roman Republic in 1849. Forced into exile, he traveled to Germany, France and England, studying the works of the masters in the galleries of European capitals.

In 1867, he achieved his first great success at the Paris Salon, where some of his works were purchased by Napoleon III, and from then on he enjoyed increasing public favor, especially among the European nobility.

Throughout his life, Alessandro Castelli remained firmly anchored in the tradition of the composed landscape, which he developed, influenced by the Romantic painting known in England and Germany, in grandiose landscapes, rendered with dense impasto and strong contrasts of light, in which he placed the tiny crowds of protagonists of the historical events alluded to.

After returning to Rome in 1870, he continued to achieve remarkable successes and won the praise of Angelo Conti, who was linked to the D’Annunzio milieu.

In 1874, together with Achille Vertumni, Alessandro Castelli was named an academician of merit at the landscape school of the Accademia di S. Luca.
In 1886 he was one of the founders of the society “In Arte Libertas“.

La Nera a Narni