Is this kind of composition a lost art?

You either 'get it', as they say in the contemporary vernacular, or you don't - which pretty much summarizes, for we impatient people at Levitated Apples, our admiration for the Italian master of composition, Vittorio Matteo Corcos.

Next year will mark the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this largely unrecognized genius who somehow concealed the daring layout of modernists like Mondrian in paintings of classical appeal.

Born in Leghorn on 4 October 1859, Corcos displayed his talents early and was sent by his family to the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence where he studied drawing and painting. At nineteen, he left Florence for Naples and continued his studies with Domenico Morelli whose work he greatly admired.

Domenico Morelli's work, rich in literary associations and formal ideas made a great impression on him - an influence that is apparent in the painting "Arabo in preghiera" (The Praying Arab), which dates from this period. But it was a society painter that the young Italian was to make his mark.

By the turn of the 20th century, Corcos had become famous as a portrait painter. In 1904, in Germany, he painted portraits of Wilhelm II, the Empress and many important German figures. Later, he painted a celebrated portrait of Queen Amelia and later still, near the end of his career, the "Ritratto di Margherita di Savoia" (Portrait of Margherita of Savoy).