MONDO X

Mancini: 15 Minutes 100 Years Later

This afternoon: “Boldini and the Italians in Paris” show at the Chiostro del Bramante. We went to see the Boldini’s and, while we were certainly not disappointed, it was the work of Antonio Mancini, experienced for the first time, that left me reeling with admiration and surprise. This is art that is radically, transformatively beautiful, almost shockingly so and created with a sensibility that somehow seems as unlikely (for its time and place) as it is unique and singularly lovely.

There were only a few pieces in the exhibition, but it was not difficult to see why John Singer Sargent famously proclaimed Mancini the “greatest living artist.” Following a recent purchase of 15 canvases, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented the first U.S. show wholly devoted to the artist in 2007. Here’s an excerpt from their website:

Mancini worked at the forefront of Verismo, an indigenous Italian response to nineteenth-century realism, producing haunting portrayals of circus performers, street musicians, and impoverished children taken from the streets of Naples. After suffering a disabling mental illness, Mancini settled in Rome, and with the support of American and Dutch patrons managed for many years to eke out a precarious existence. Many of Mancini’s paintings incorporated thick impasto, whose glittering light effects he enhanced by adding bits of glass, metal foil, and other materials.

The New York Times in the guise of Roberta Smith reviewed the exhibition with considerable verve in January 2008 and very thoughtfully provided a multi-media slideshow of the works in the Philadelphia collection. In addition, Yale has published a new book on the artist by Ulrich Hiesinger entitled Antonio Mancini: Nineteenth Century Italian Master. If a century too late, it would appear that Mancini’s 15 minutes have indeed arrived.