Alongside his oil paintings, Giovanni Giacometti (1868-1933) was also a lifelong watercolourist. The exhibition showcases some sixty rarely seen works, some on display for the first time, to shed light on a little-known aspect of the career of a painter who is represented in the MCBA collections by several canvases and drawings.
Alongside his oil paintings, Giovanni Giacometti (1868-1933) was also a lifelong watercolourist. The exhibition showcases some sixty rarely seen works, some on display for the first time, to shed light on a little-known aspect of the career of a painter who is represented in the MCBA collections by several canvases and drawings.Giovanni Giacometti's watercolours, including views of the Engadin valley and Val Bregaglia and a handful of interior scenes and portraits of friends and family, were planned as fully-fledged works of art in their own right, quite apart from his other creative endeavours. He would regularly visit his favourite places to paint the same scenes to grasp their full richness. The swiftness of watercolour let him capture quick changes in weather and light and how they shaped his perception of the landscape. The technique let him play with papers of varying roughness and master the effects of transparency, shaded colours, and various hues, all as fresh today as the day he painted them.