Giuseppe Riva, a painter specialized in the rendering of landscapes, wanted to continue the already warmly honored and appreciated tradition of landscape pictorialism declined in the mid-nineteenth century. He participated in numerous exhibitions, receiving many awards; in 1888 he obtained the first prize on the occasion of the Centenary of the Carrara Academy in Bergamo. Later, he also became interested in the fresco, leaving different examples in Turin, in the church of San Gioacchino, in Soragna, in Padua in the cloister of the Noviziato del Santo, in Como and in some churches in Bergamo.