(b Milan, 22 Feb 1851; d Milan, 21 Dec 1923). Italian painter. The son of a Milanese nobleman, Gola graduated in engineering at the Milan Polytecnico. He did not enrol at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, but took private lessons from Sebastiano De Albertis. At the same time he became interested in the works of Tranquillo Cremona and Daniele Ranzoni. His wealthy family background enabled him to make a series of visits to France, the Netherlands and England where he encountered the work of foreign artists. Gola made his artistic début at the Brera Annual Exhibition in 1879 with a Study from Life and Head: Study from Life (both untraced). His early work was already noted for its strong colour combinations and vigorous brushwork, as in the portrait of Contessa Gola, Mother of the Artist (c. 1882; untraced, see 1953 exh. cat., p. 53). Gola’s oeuvre can be divided principally by subject-matter: landscapes with figures, mostly executed in Brianza, such as Washerwoman (1898; Milan, Gal. A. Mod.) and Landscape: The First Thaw (1892; priv. col., see 1986 exh. cat., p. 131); the Milanese canals (St Christopher’s Canal, c. 1890; Milan, Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano); seascapes, particularly of Alassio and the Venetian lagoon (Beach at Alassio, 1915–18; Milan, Gal. A. Mod.); and portraits (Marchesa Emilia Sommi Picenardi, c. 1900, Rome, G.N.A. Mod.). Gola was influenced by the work of I Scapagliati, particularly by their use of juxtaposed or superimposed brushstrokes to attain certain effects of light and colour. However, his subject-matter was different, his colours more brilliant, his brushwork freer, occasionally virtually ignoring form, and at times his figures seem carelessly positioned on the canvas. At his most successful, however, he could produce such splendidly original works as his several interpretations (in oil and watercolour) of the theme Washerwomen at Mondonico (e.g. ex-Chiesa priv. col., Milan).