Biography

Italian painter belonging to the Macchiaioli group. He began his artistic training at the Verona Academy, and then studied at the Venice Academy from 1845-47. During the 1850s Cabianca became acquainted with the artists who frequented the Caffe Michelangiolo in Florence, who would soon be known as the Macchiaioli. He became a friend of Telemaco Signorini, whose influence led Cabianca to turn away from genre painting towards a bolder realism, beginning in 1858.

Like the other Macchiaioli, he painted landscapes en plein air, but he was more reluctant than his friends were to abandon historical and literary subjects. Many of his paintings depict nuns; a well-known example is Le monachine (The nuns; 1861-62). The works of Cabianca's later years show the influence of the Symbolists and the Pre-Raphaelites.