APPIANI, ANDREA

APPIANI, ANDREA. — Painter, born in Milan on 23 May 1754, died there on 8 November 1817. Under his teacher Carlo Maria Giudici, wholly absorbed in Mengs’s theories, he was introduced to the Neoclassical approach, to which he later knew how to give a distinctly Italian character, becoming its leading representative in Italy. His fame rests especially on his portraits and frescoes (particularly noteworthy are those in the royal palace of Milan). He began as a painter of sacred subjects, namely with the frescoes (1795) beneath the dome of S. Maria presso S. Celso in Milan, which led Parini to say that Mengs and Batoni had found a worthy successor. Among his sacred oil paintings, we recall the Jacob in the church of Alzano and the Adoration of the Shepherds at Arona.