Basilio Cascella

Basilio Cascella (1 October 1860 - 24 July 1950) was an Italian artist, active from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century.

Biography

In 1860, Cascella was born to Francesco Paolo Cascella, a tailor, and his wife, Marianna Siciliano. The family moved to Ortona in 1870. It was in this city that Basilio spent his childhood and finished elementary school. He then attended the Artieri night school in Pescara and worked as an apprentice in the Luigi Salomone printing plant. His first drawings date back to 1874, copied from the prints. His father wanted Cascella to help in the tailor shop, but the boy had little interest in becoming a tailor. Instead, in April 1875, he went to Rome and was hired as an apprentice at lithography in the Luigi Salomone printing plant. In 1879, he settled in Naples and came into contact with many other artists, including Domenico Morelli and Francesco Paolo Michetti. Cascella began painting in the Verismo style.

Cascella worked in painting, graphic design and illustration. He later moved to Milan where he opened a lithographic illustration factory. He exhibited some works at the National Artistic Exhibion of Turin in 1884 and at the Art Exhibition of Venice in 1887 (together with artists such as Giovanni Segantini, John Singer Sargent, Giacomo Grosso, Cesare Tallone, Antonio Mancini, and Federico Bernagozzi). He also exhibited at shows in London (1888) and in Palermo (1891). Three of his sons, Tommaso Cascella, Michele Cascella, and Gioacchino Cascella also became artists. Back in his hometown, Cascella resumed relations with Michetti and became part of the Convento Michetti, frequented, at the time, by Gabriele D'Annunzio, Francesco Paolo Tosti, Costantino Barbella and other well-known Abruzzese artists, writers and men of culture. On 30 January 1895, the city council of the city deliberated the transfer of land to allow Cascella to build a lithographic and painting studio. In 1898, he took part in the Italian General Exhibition in Turin.

In 1899, after having gathered around him a cenacle of local writers and artists, Cascella published the first issue of the magazine "L'lustration Abruzzo". Gabriele d'Annunzio stands out among the collaborators. Other stimuli to the magazine come from the research on the folklore of Antonio De Nino, Gennaro Finamore and Ignazio Cerasoli.

Subsequently, he edited the magazine L'illustrazione meridionale [The Southern Illustration] and in 1905 resumed with a second series L'illustrazione abruzzese [The Abruzzese Illustration], followed by La Grande Illustrazione [The Great Illustration]. Luigi Pirandello, Umberto Saba, Gennaro Finamore, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Sibilla Aleramo, Matilde Serao, Grazia Deledda, Ada Negri, Guido Gozzano, and Giovanni Pascoli all contributed to the magazines. Cascella also contributed to the Milanese magazine Varietas.

In 1917, he moved with his children to Rapino, where he devoted himself to the activity of a ceramist. In 1924, he made the three polychrome panels depicting the Pietà, l'Eroe del mare and l'Eroe della montagna for the tomb of the Abruzzese hero Andrea Bafile created by the sculptor Felicetto Giuliante in the cave of Bocca di Valle near Guardiagrele on the Maiella; in 1926 seven large panels for the gallery of the dispensing counters of the Terme del Tettuccio in Montecatini; in 1930 five large panels with views of Italian cities for the gallery of the Milano Centrale railway station; in 1939 the decorative panels for the Messina maritime station designed by his son Michele.

In the 1920s, he joined the National Fascist Party. On 24 March 1929 he was elected deputy for the XXVIII legislature of the Kingdom of Italy, a position he held until 1934.

He remained active as he grew old and created numerous works, including the canvas for the wedding of the Prince of Piedmont at Villa Savoia in Rome in 1930, the allegorical paintings La terra e Il mare for the Government Palace of Bolzano in 1934 in collaboration with son Tommaso, The Day of Faith at the Quirinale Palace in Rome, Italian People and Fabbro at the Ministry of the Interior in Rome, Trebbia del Grano at the Ministry of Agriculture. He was present at various exhibitions including the Rome Quadriennale of 1931, the Fourth Exhibition of the Fascist Provincial Union of Fine Arts of Abruzzo and Molise in Campobasso in 1937. He held his last solo show in Milan in 1948. Cascella died in Rome in 1950.

In 1955, the annual Basilio Cascella Award was initiated in Ortona in the Province of Chieti.

Work and style

When Cascella was stationed in the military at Pavia in 1880, he met Metardo Rosso and Vincenzo Irolli, and started painting. After moving to Milan, Basilio found Metardo Rosso and met Aleardo Villa, who introduced him to the "Famiglia artistica" ["artistic family"], and began his study of the nude. Works from this period include Ritratto della madre [Portrait of the mother], Ritratto di Vincenzo Irolli [Portrait of Vincenzo Irolli], Allegoria dell'amore [Allegory of love ](watercolor), Testa di arabo [Head of an Arab], and Figura di donna [Figure of a woman] (pastel), all preserved in the Basilio Cascella Civic Museum in Pescara.. Back in Abruzzo in 1883, he frescoed the council chamber of the Municipality of Ortona, which was destroyed in the cannonades of December 1943. The next year he participated in the Italian General Exhibition of Contemporary Art, held in Turin, with the painting Mantello e sottabito inspired by Abruzzo, then was at the 1887 National Art Exhibition in Venice, in London in 1888, and at the 1893 Italian Exhibition in Naples. l suono e il sonno [Sound and sleep], now preserved in Chieti, was shown at the 1984 Triennial Exhibition of the Academy of Brera in Milan. This work portrays an Arcadian subject, a shepherd who serenades his woman to sleep with the sound of his Zampognabagpipes. The background contains a dream-like portrayal of female nudes. The work is kept in the Pinacoteca Cascella di Ortona in the Palazzo Farnese and subsequently appeared at the Exposition of the Society of Fine Arts of Rome.……

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