He was born in Ferrara, the son of a painter of religious subjects, and in 1862 went to Florence for six years to study and pursue painting. Giovanni Boldini enjoyed a long and successful artistic career. Only toward the end of his long life, did his style change, using mainly dark, rich colors. He became the most fashionable portrait painter in Paris in the late 19th century, with a dashing style of painting which shows some Impressionist influence but which most closely resembles the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Paul Helleu. He painted mostly portraits and also landscapes in the naturalistic style of his day, influenced by the Macchiaioli schooled artists he knew in Florence, and worked on engravings, with pastels, watercolors and etchings. It is the masterful brushwork that gives his paintings the sense of motion. The brush work on his paintings was swift and bold. His paintings showed his subject in soft-focus, elongated, in movement, alive, and sophisticated. According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the 'Master of Swish' because of his flowing style of painting.

He only infrequently attended classes at the Academy of Fine Arts, but in Florence, met other realist painters known as the Macchiaioli.Giovanni Boldini (1842 – 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter.

According to a 1933 article in Time magazine, he was known as the Master of Swish because of his flowing style of painting. Giovanni Boldini (1842 – 1931) was an Italian genre and portrait painter. Copyright © 2016 by Maria Peitcheva Foreword

Giovanni Boldini by Maria Peitcheva