(Trst, 29.11.1840-Trst, 21.6.1900)
Francesco Beda was an Italian academic realist who worked in the second half of the 19th century. Between 1859 and 1866, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, after which he travelled the world for ten years. He visited Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Along the way, he did a lot of sketching and portraits, which helped him to train his painting skills. During his creative career, he produced quite a few landscape images, works of art with historical themes and genre scenes from everyday customs in his surroundings. He produced a large number of works of art on order for Winterstein, who was considered an important art dealer in Vienna.
This one asked the artist to come as close as possible to the painting techniques of Jean Louis Meissonier. In his artistic expression, Francesco Beda repeatedly relied on Venetian painting of the 18th century. This infused a sense of lightness into his images and furnished them with a characteristically Venetian color. With this, the artist achieved greater picturesqueness, which brought him fame among culture lovers. The colors in Bede's paintings do not flow, but are clean and clearly separated from each other, as was usual for trained painters. His paintings are dominated by a realistic gesture, which is based on a previously carefully drawn sketch. Francesco's works of art are filled with details and various ornaments. Ever since the beginning of the 19th century, there has been a general fascination with the Orient in Europe. Thus, Beda also resorted to oriental motifs and painted some works with eastern themes for a group of clients. They are characterized by a brighter color, and above all, a lively image of the playful and tempting Eastern world.
The Oriental cycle no longer follows the Venetian models, but was inspired by Mariano Fortuny when painting it. He was considered an excellent artist, with whom the artist had the opportunity to become acquainted during his stay in Venice. A few years later, Franceso Beda painted together with the leading representative of French Orientalism, Jean Léon Gerôm. The two artists produced a series of images for the French art dealer Adolphe Goupil. Throughout his career, he received quite a few commissions for prominent clients and nobility, who always strongly supported him in his creations. Among the most important were Empress Elizabeth, Prince Rohan and the Croatian politician and church dignitary Strossmayer. During his lifetime, he was appreciated mainly in England, but his status gradually grew in other parts of Europe as well. He inspired his son Giulian to paint, who, like his father, started in Venice and then continued his career in Munich.
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Francesco Beda je bil italijanski akademski realist, ki je ustvarjal v drugi polovici 19. stoletja. Med leti 1859 in 1866 se je šolal na likovni akademiji v Benetkah, nato pa se je za deset let odpravil na potovanje po svetu. Obiskal je Avstrijo, Madžarsko in Hrvaško. Na poti je veliko skiciral in portretiral kar mu je pomagalo pri urjenju slikarskih veščin. Tekom ustvarjalne kariere je izdelal kar nekaj krajinskih podob, umetnin s historično tematiko in žanrskih prizorov iz vsakdanjih običajev v svoji okolici. Veliko število umetnin je izdelal po naročilu za Wintersteina, ki je na Dunaju veljal kot pomemben trgovec z umetninami.
Ta je od umetnika zahteval, naj se čim bolj približa slikarskim prijemom Jeana Louisa Meissoniera. V svojem likovnem izrazu se je Francesco Beda večkrat naslonil na beneško slikarstvo 18. stoletja. To je v njegove podobe vdahnilo občutek lahkotnosti ter jih opremilo z značilno beneškim koloritom. S tem je umetnik dosegel večjo slikovitost, ki mu je prinesla slavo med ljubitelji kulture. Barve v slikah Bede se ne prelivajo ampak so čiste in jasno ločene med seboj, kot je bilo to običajno za šolane slikarje. V njegovih slikah prevladuje realistična poteza, ki temelji na predhodno natančno izrisani skici. Likovna dela Francesca so zapolnjena z detajli in najrazličnejšimi ornamenti. Vse od začetka 19. stoletja je v Evropi potekala vsesplošna fascinacija nad Orientom. Tako je tudi Beda posegel po orientalskih motivih in za krog naročnikov naslikal nekaj del z vzhodnjaško tematiko. Zanje je značilen bolj svetel kolorit, predvsem pa živahna podoba igrivega in mamljivega vzhodnega sveta.
Orientalski cikel ne sledi več beneškim vzorom ampak se je pri slikanju tega zgledoval po Marianu Fortunyju. Veljal je za odličnega umetnika, s katerim se je umetnik imel možnost seznaniti med bivanjem v Benetkah. Nekoliko let kasneje je Franceso Beda slikal skupaj z vodilnim predstavnikom francoskega orientalizma Jeanom Léonom Gerômom. Umetnika sta izdelala serijo podob za francoskega trgovca z umetninami Adolpha Goupila. Skozi celotno kariero je prejel kar nekaj naročil za ugledne naročnike in plemstvo, ki ga je pri ustvarjanju vselej močno podpiralo. Med najpomembnejšimi so bili cesarica Elizabeta, princ Rohan in hrvaški politik in cerkveni dostojanstvenik Strossmayer. Za časa življenja so ga cenili predvsem v Angliji, postopoma pa je njegov status rastel tudi drugod po Evropi. Za slikarstvo je navdušil svojega sina Giulia, ki je tako kot oče začel v Benetkah nato pa je kariero nadaljeval v Münchnu.
Besedilo je za galerijo Porta Alpina pripravila Pia Župevec, dipl. um. zgod.
The text was prepared for the Porta Alpina gallery by Pia Župevec, B.Sc. art history
SOURCES/VIRI:
Silvio BENCO, Introduzione di Silvio Benco, Pittori e scultori di Trieste, Milano, Milano 1922, pp. 1-13.
Dr. Anđela Horvat, s. v. Beda, Francesco, Enciklopedija Likovnih Umjetnosti, 1, Zagreb 1959, p. 301.
Ljubomir Andrej LISAC, s. v. Beda Francesco (1840-1900), Primorski slovenski biografski leksikon, 2 snop. Bartol-Bor, Gorica 1975, https://www.slovenska-biografija.si/oseba/sbi1001810/ (26.6.2024).
Ulrich THIEME-Felix BECKER, s. v. Beda Francesco, Künstler-Lexikon, 3, Leipzig 1953, p. 158.
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