Sunset in Castiglione

Facciotto was a very sensitive artist, though his life was a short one. He was an exponent of the so-called Scuola Chiarista, which took shape between Milan and the region north of Mantua. The works of artists who were part of this movement are characterized by the use of soft colours, in some instances made brighter by more intense colours; the influence of Matisse is often visible in the period before and after the war. Facciotto worked as treasurer in the psychiatric asylum in Mantua, and was basically a self-taught painter. He composed some small masterworks, small scenes of hills or still-lifes. The atmosphere is generally an elementary one, at times infantile. In the painting we can admire the sun is a small orange blotch, and brings no light to the composition. The light, on the other hand, is visible in the brushwork that creates the landscape, approximate though effective, suggesting a musical harmony between nature and the human soul observing it.