Giovanni Carnovali

In 1815, at the age of just 11, he was admitted to the Carrara Academy in Bergamo under the guidance of the director Giuseppe Diotti, who immediately recognised his young pupil's natural talent.

The artist soon began to break away from the strict Neoclassicism of his academic training and return to the figurative tradition of the 16th and 17th century, which he interpreted with great expressive freedom, especially in portrait painting.

After the first short trips for study purposes, made on foot in the second half of the 1820s, he travelled as far as Rome in 1831 and stopped in Parma on the way back.

These years saw a shift towards painting of a less descriptive character with soft, hazy outlines under the influence of Correggio and Andrea Appiani as well as the French art seen in Paris around 1840.

This change in style culminated in the rejection of a work by the ecclesiastical commission of Anzano in 1863 due to its unprecedented freedom and daringly experimental handling of light.