Cappiello's firts portraits date from 1893, but most of them have been made between 1905 and 1920.

"They constitute the wise part of his work" as said Jacques Vienot

The french writer Henri de Regnier has been portrayed in 1909. He relates the event in his book : LES CAHIERS INEDITS (1887 - 1936) p. 610 (©2002 Editions Pygmalion / Gerard Watelet in Paris)

Our translation is the following:

"At Cappiello's. I am standing, beside the high canvas on which he sketches my portrait standing. I watch the artist painting. The palette is full of greys and blacks. Himself is in black velvet jacket. His brown, bony and sharp face with dark and sparkling eyes, is enjoying to watch, in his expressive vivacity. One can feel all the work adventures. He is happy, he is undecided, he his anxious. The whole body imitates the face mimic. It is the perpetual motion. Sometime, I see him in the back of the studio, where he steps back by small leaps, then, suddently, he rushes on the convas and strokes it with the brush. Here he is climbed on a footstool, from where he tears down like a cat.His painting method makes me thinking about italian farcing, more animated than our. He fights realy with the model. It is an attack...

He takes rest, lights a cigarette and talks; it is the intermission."

 

 

 

 

 

Woman in interior (1891)

Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori - Livorno

 

 

Cappiello's family (1909)

Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori - Livorno

 

In 1914 Cappiello was saying :

"Behind the physicalperson of the man or the woman I lons to do the portrait, I caught a glimpse of a sort of ghost which was his character, his moral person, some unity more quintessentiel than what constitute personality. I was more interested in the mind than in the body, smile affected me more than the form of the mouth, look more than eye shape..."