Filippo Indoni (Italian, 1842-1908)

Filipo Indoni (1842-1908) was a Roman born artist who painted in the Realist style. He often created lively scenes of peasants and lower class people playing, laughing and generally being carefree. Indoni made these formerly forgotten people in the art world shine, while his fellow artists were portraying them in darker themes. Indoni was particularly talented with watercolors, and painted a number of scenes of peasants and country people in watercolor. Unlike many other artists who portray peasants and workers, Indoni’s subjects are generally happy and jubilant. This is because Indoni’s goal was to portray them as being people that are proud of their hard work, as opposed to being downtrodden, and was Indoni’s response to the idealistic, but unrealistic styling of formerly popular Romanticism. Indoni’s signature style of warm amber light, festive activities and idealistic country scenes are one of many ways to pinpoint whether a painting was created by him or not. However, another telltale sign is his beautiful scripted signature “F. Indoni” which often appeared on the front of his canvases.