Giulio Aristide Sartorio Biography
Giulio Aristide Sartorio was born in Rome on 11 February 1860 into a family originally from Novara. His father, Raffaele, was a painter and introduced his son to the same discipline, starting his promising career.
He soon began to frequent literary and artistic circles, becoming friends with important figures of the time, such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Giosuè Carducci and Vittorio Scarfoglio. He collaborated on the fortnightly magazine "Cronaca bizantina", focused on art, literature and society.
During the 1980s, Sartorio traveled to Europe, the Middle and Far East, enriching his knowledge of different cultures and landscapes. His stay in Paris, shared with Francesco Paolo Michetti, led him to delve into naturalistic painting and the depiction of animals, closely studying the work of French landscape artists.
In the 1990s, the painter was fascinated by Pre-Raphaelite painting, so much so that he wrote two essays on Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
In 1896, returning from Weimar where he had been a guest of the Grand Duke Carlo Alessandro, Sartorio founded the group "I Venticinque della Campagna Romana", also composed of Enrico Coleman, Onorato Carlandi and A. Reggio.
During the First World War, in 1915, Sartorio left for the front and was wounded in Lucinico, and was then taken prisoner for two years in Mauthausen. He was freed thanks to the intervention of Benedict XV, but returned only to paint the life of the soldiers on the front.
After the end of the conflict, Sartorio traveled again to Egypt, Syria and Palestine, creating numerous landscapes. In 1930 he participated for the last time in the Venice Biennale. He died in Rome in 1932, leaving behind an important artistic legacy.
