Lorenzo Viani (Viareggio 1882 - Ostia 1936)

Lorenzo Viani (Viareggio 1882 – Ostia 1936) received his early training with artists such as Fattori and especially Plinio Nomellini, who from the language of the Macchiaioli had elaborated a personal Divisionism bearing echoes of Mitteleuropean painting, from Klimt to Hodler.
Two stays in Paris after the turn of the century (1905-06 and 1908-09) drew Viani towards an Expressionism in which traces of Munch and Rouault are discernible. Another visible influence on his work was the Pink Period of Picasso, whom he met during his first stay in Paris.
Viani belonged to a milieu in the Viareggio of his day that was led, in a spirit of anarchistic rebelliousness, to pay special attention to a world embracing the common people and the underclass on the fringes of society – card-players in taverns, prisoners, prostitutes, sailors. His art evokes the world of the “vanquished”, their faces and their conditions, with intense empathy.