Friday, December 4, 2020

Gustavo Simoni

Gustavo Simoni (1846-1926) was an Italian artist who specialized in subjects from the Islamic world.


He traveled in Spain, France, and Africa, and he opened up a school of Orientalist painting in Italy and had a studio in Paris. 

G. Simoni Figura con cornamusa, 1889, oil on canvas

His younger brother Scipione and three of his five kids were also artists. He was one of the founders of the Society of Watercolorists of Rome.


He worked in both watercolor and oil.

Gustavo Simoni, Morra Players, 1894

In the game of Morra, "all players throw out a single hand, each showing zero to five fingers, and call out their guess at what the sum of all fingers shown will be. If one player guesses the sum, that player earns one point. The first player to reach three points wins the game."
 

Simoni, detail of Morra Players


The Halt of the Caravan by Gustavo Simoni, 1885, oil on canvas, 61 by 90 cm., 24 by 35 in.

4 comments:

Susan Krzywicki said...

Interesting shoes and feet in many of these paintings.

peter swift said...

I am fascinated by the curiously empty area on the left side of "Morra Players". It makes the composition unbalanced, which the experts usually warn against. But here, it was very effective!

Mario said...

Peter, if you click on the "Morra players" image, you will see the full, uncut painting, which is quite regular and balanced. But we are XXI century viewers, and we may easily prefer the irregular, unbalanced version.

Rob Story said...

Hi, James - I just found a gouache/watercolor by Mario Simoni (dated 1909) in Blanco, Texas (of all places) this past weekend. Hard to believe, but it cost me all of $42.00 at a small antique store. It's a beautifully rendered original which features some traveling musicians loitering outside of a ruined structure of some kind. I can only assume that this is one of his sons. 1885 to 1953 were the artist's "dates." Found your blog as I was researching. His father's work is outstanding.