Driven by his father, Cazzaniga dedicated himself to painting studies, attending the Cimabue Academy in Milan from 1950. In the very first post-war period he began to frequent the artistic circles linked to the current of Realismo Esistenziale, therefore artists such as Bepi Romagnoni, Mino Ceretti, Giuseppe Guerreschi, Giuseppe Banchieri and Tino Vaglieri who were looking for an answer and a new path with respect to social realism. In Cazzaniga's works a recurring theme is the nightlife that gravitates around Jazz music, his friends were the great Italian jazz musicians: Franco Cerri and Enrico Intra. In 1962 he participated in the XXXI Venice Biennale with a selection of works on the theme of jazz music, the Jazz Man. Another recurring motif in his art are landscapes and nature.