Giacinto Gigante
Giacinto Gigante
Giacinto Gigante, son of the painter Gaetano Gigante (Naples 1770 – 1840), was born in Naples on 11th July 1806.
We learn from an autobiographical note on a drawing in the Museo di San Martino that he began to study landscape painting from life with Jakob Wilhelm Hüber (Dusseldorf 1787-Zurich 1871).
Jakob Wilhelm Hüber was a German painter who specialised in topographical shots in the old academic style.
Giacinto Gigante himself tells us:
“I stayed in this studio for a few months after my master left Naples”.
He then worked with the painter Anton Sminck van Pitloo (Arnhem 1790 – Naples 1837).
During this apprenticeship, which lasted until around 1924, he was joined by Achille Vianelli (Porto Maurizio 1803 – Benevento 1894), whose sister Eloisa he later married.
In 1826 he worked for Wolsfembergher-forse in the commercial production of Neapolitan and Roman views.
He was successful in engraving and lithography and, as Ortolani informs us: “he illustrated the “Viaggio pittoresco nel Regno delle due Sicilie” (Picturesque journey through the Kingdom of the two Sicilies). He also collaborated on a series of 100 etching views of Naples and its surroundings…’.
Between 1830 and 1840 he was already an established painter, and in 1931 he took a wife.
In 1837, on the death of Anton Sminck van Pitloo, as we learn from Ortolani, Giacinto Gigante moved into the house which the Dutch master had occupied for 20 years.
That house in San Carlo alle Mortelle – Vico vasto, 15 – was more than ever, at this time, the propelling centre of the Posillipo School.
By now, success was overwhelming: Giacinto Gigante was sought after by the Empress of Russia, taught painting to the daughters of Francis II, was intrinsic to the Court and often followed the sovereigns to Gaeta.
With the unification of Italy, he adapted to the new political reality, even though an accredited legend depicts Giacinto Gigante as being afraid of falling victim to the Garibaldians.
Instead, commissioned in 1861 for the new collections of the Savoy family at Capodimonte, he executed the famous tempera of the Chapel of San Gennaro, which is as famous as it is uncharacteristic of his personality as an artist.
He died, revered by the entire art world, on 29 September 1876.
The Museo di San Martino in Naples has a very large collection of his drawings, watercolours and tempera paintings, as well as a significant group of oil paintings.
An entire room is dedicated to him at the Correale Museum in Sorrento.
Other works can be found in the Talamo collection in Cava dei Tirreni and in the Astarita collection in Sorrento.