Giuseppe Zais Biography
Giuseppe Zais or, more properly, Xaiz (Forno di Canale, 22 March 1709 – Treviso, 29 December 1781) was an Italian painter. Belluno painter of the Rococo period, exponent of the Arcadian school, he was a pupil of Francesco Zuccarelli with whom he shared the record of best painter of the genre, although Filippo de Boni in his Biography of the Artists also indicates him as a pupil of Francesco Simonini, a Parma native who taught him as a painter of battles. He painted many paintings of landscapes and battles, Arcadian painting comes from Guercino's famous painting Et in Arcadia ego, a theme that was developed during the seventeenth century by Francesco Albani and later by Salvator Rosa. Abbot Lanzi in his Pictorial History of Italy says that he was a pupil of the consul Joseph Smith (1682-1770), a well-known English patron who lived in Venice. In 1774 Zais became a member of the Academy of Painting. Ten years later he died in poverty. Again Lanzi, regarding his death, informs us that: «given to negligence and dissipation he died like a beggar in the Trevigi hospital» Many testimonies remain of his activity: among the most famous are the frescoes of the Villa Pisani in Stra , painted between 1760 and 1765. His works are exhibited in Italy at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, at the Museum of Bassano del Grappa and at the Pinacoteca civica of Forlì. He was also an engraver of etchings.
