P. Dini Biography
Edoardo Pasquale Perolo, also known as Dini, was born in Novi in 1867. Already as a young man he was interested in painting, appreciating the style, colors and modernity it brought about. His technique was mainly that of divisionism, using dots and dense stripes to create his canvases. This technique was performed in the years 1894 to 1898, however it is unknown who learned this specific technique from. Many art critics and scholars of the time respected him and considered him a great artist, but there are no clear indications regarding the provenance of his technique. It is assumed that Pellizza, who lived near Novi, influenced Dini during their contacts, or perhaps that Plinio Nomellini, a friend of Dini, transmitted the divisionism technique during the period in which they attended the same school in Florence . Nomellini often lived in Genoa from 1890 to 1902, where he had a circle of intellectual friends and spread propaganda in favor of divisionism, even convincing Pellizza to accept this new technique. In 1898, with the trip to Intra, Dini abandoned divisionism, although he made a single exception for a commissioned portrait of the explorer Franzoi. In painting "The Two Little Brothers", a triple exception to the abandonment of divisionism, the artist sentimentally participates in the execution and displays a very personal note - a fusion of impressionism and divisionism.
Dini went through many artistic movements during his life and was always attentive to the dynamics and trends of art, interpreting and developing them with his personal style. He learned different styles from artists like Ranzoni, who showed him a softer formal line and a newer luminosity at Intra. His technique with stripes and large notches, the pure colors and the play of red-yellow shades would later become his distinctive note. Dini was an unpredictable and changeable artist, but always sincere and ingenious. In Novi, Dini represents the painter par excellence, immortalizing the beauty of Didina and portraying contemporary characters with mastery. He preserved the historical memory of the city in his portraits and caricature drawings, igniting the memory of extraordinary and incisive fellow citizens of the new age.
