Giacinto Gigante (1806-1876) was an Italian painter. Gigante was introduced to painting by his father Gaetano Gigante.
His brothers Achille Gigante and Ercole Gigante also became landscape artists. He trained in the style of Hackert and was influenced by the technical drawing carried out at the Naples Royal Institute of Fine Arts.
Along with Achille Vianellihe was to be strongly influenced by a large colony of foreign painters then present in Naples including Huber and Pitloo. From Wolfgang Huber Gigante learnt watercolour technique and the use of the panoramic ?-amera lucidae method. Via Huber he met the Dutch artist Anton Sminck van Pitloo, who became his teacher for a few years. In 1823 Gigante won the Naples Royal Institute of Fine Arts drawing competition. In 1826 he displayed four works at the first Esposizione di Belle Arti. Reportedly though Gigante did not fit in well with the life of the Naples Royal Institute of Fine Arts and left.
Around 1826 he was living in Naples in Vicoletto del Vasto 15, with Van Pitloo, Carl Götzloff and Teodoro Duclere.
He is considered the foremost exponent of the 19th-century Neapolitan "Posillipo School" of painting.
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