Mario De Maria (Marius Pictor) was born in Bologna in 1852 by Fabio De Maria, doctor and art collector, son of Giacomo, sculptor, pupil and friend of Canova, and by Caterina Pesci. His studies of him began with learning music and only later did he attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. Thanks to the comfortable conditions of the family, he made numerous trips and stayed in the main European artistic capitals. Back in Italy, in Rome, he joins the group “In Arte Libertas”. The first real success comes with an exhibition of 1886, where his works are highly appreciated by Queen Margherita. On 14 July 1890 he married Emilia Elena Voigt of Bremen, daughter of Robert Voigt and Wilhelmine Gerlach. In 1892 the family, one year after the birth of their son Astolfo, who would also become a famous and successful painter, moved to Venice, first settling in an apartment-studio on the Zattere. De Maria fits with great vitality into the city cultural environment by actively participating in the battles set up by Molmenti for the protection of the historic center, in the discussions relating to the organization of the first Biennials and to the social and cultural life fueled by the presence of Gabriele D'Annunzio , Eleonora Duse, Mariano Fortuny, Angelo Conti and many other artists committed to the goal of making Venice a point of reference in the field of international artistic events. 1895 was the year of the project for the façade of the Biennale exhibition site in the Giardini di Castello and the birth of the second daughter Silvia. In 1904 Silvia died leaving her father in a state of prostration from which she struggled to recover; he thus took refuge in Bern to be treated. With the return to Venice, years of great activity resume and de Maria seems to have returned to the energy of the past. However, nostalgia for the absence of his daughter Silvia continues to torment him, he therefore decides to dedicate a neo-Gothic style house-symbol to his memory, whose windows - the Three Oci - allude to the three survivors of the family. The construction works of the Casa dei Tre Oci, whose plans and photographs have been preserved, ended in 1913: from now on this became the Venetian residence of the family. The friendship with the major so-called decadent and aestheticizing artists of the time, including D'Annunzio for whom he illustrated Isaotta and Gattadauro, has led De Maria to be included in this school. His main works are essentially characterized by the presence of nocturnal and contrasting lights. We remember the Plague of Rome in 600, The skeleton maker, Monks of empty orbits and the Funest Day. For Malipiero he made the title page of the Symphonies of Silence and Death. He also took care of the scenes for the representation of the opera Canossa at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome in 1914. After the war, times changed, the economic aristocracy that had appreciated his paintings disappeared, perhaps a little forgotten by the new generations, he died in Bologna at 72 years of age. He rests in the family tomb located in the Main Cloister of the Certosa di Bologna. The epigraph recalls how 'musical spirit, translated into color the words of shadow and light like an ancient and will not be able to die'. "Grandson of the well-known Bolognese sculptor Giacomo De Maria, he first devoted himself to musical studies, then attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna under Puccinelli. In 1880 he was in Venice, in 82 in Rome, where he remained there until '92 , to move back to Venice. In Rome, where he befriended Vincenzo Cabianca, he participated in the movement "In arte libertas", exhibiting with this group, and holding a personal exhibition in via S. Nicola di Tolentino. He then exhibited in Berlin and London , obtaining success. Inserted in a post-romantic climate, nourished by visionary readings from Poe to Hoffmann, he became famous as a painter of nocturnes, in which he reaches an emotional tension and a lyricism that approaches him to certain compositions by Friedrich. He also touches on modernist settings. , without however adhering to liberty. "

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