The Little Lake

Valentino Gottardo (1820-1884) trained at the Brera Academy under the guidance of Giuseppe Bisi, the first teacher in the landscape Department, combining the Lombard landscape painting of Marco Gozzi with the romantic apertures of Giuseppe Canella, without neglecting the realistic anticipations of Gaetano Fasanotti. With this solid academic training he landed in Rome in the first half of the 1840s and here he studied 18th-century “vedutismo” for a long time, reworking its schemes and contents and consolidating his role within a glorious tradition. "'The Little Lake” testifies to his profound skill in landscape painting, hinting at a certain late Romantic taste.