Antonio Mancini (14 November 1852 – 28 December 1930) was an Italian painter.

Biography

John Singer Sargent - Portrait of Antonio Mancini

Mancini was born in Rome and showed precocious ability as an artist. At the age of twelve, he was admitted to the

Institute of Fine Arts The Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) of New York University is dedicated to graduate teaching and advanced research in the history of art, archaeology and the conservation and technology of works of art. It offers Master of Arts and Doctor of Philos ...

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's admin ...

, where he studied under

Domenico Morelli Domenico Morelli (4 August 182313 August 1901) was an Italian painter, who mainly produced historical and religious works. Morelli was immensely influential in the arts of the second half of the 19th century, both as director of the Accademia ...

(1823–1901), a painter of historical scenes who favored dramatic

chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrast (vision), contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts ...

and vigorous brushwork, and Filippo Palizzi. Mancini developed quickly under their guidance, and in 1872, he exhibited two paintings at the

Paris Salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

. Mancini worked at the forefront of the ''Verismo'' movement, an indigenous Italian response to 19th-century Realist aesthetics. His usual subjects included children of the poor, juvenile circus performers, and musicians he observed in the streets of Naples. His portrait of a young acrobat in ''Il Saltimbanco'' (1877–78) captures the fragility of the boy whose impoverished childhood is spent entertaining pedestrian crowds. While in Paris in the 1870s, Mancini met the

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...

painters Edgar Degas and

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bo ...

. He became friends with

John Singer Sargent John Singer Sargent (; January 12, 1856 – April 14, 1925) was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and mor ...

, who famously pronounced him to be the greatest living painter. His mature works show a brightened palette with a striking impasto technique on canvas and a bold command of

pastels A pastel () is an art medium in a variety of forms including a stick, a square a pebble or a pan of color; though other forms are possible; they consist of powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are similar to those us ...

on paper. In 1881, Mancini suffered a disabling mental illness. He settled in Rome in 1883 for twenty years, then moved to

Frascati Frascati () is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital in the Lazio region of central Italy. It is located south-east of Rome, on the Alban Hills close to the ancient city of Tusculum. Frascati is closely associated wit ...

where he lived until 1918. During this period of Mancini's life, he was often destitute and relied on the help of friends and art buyers to survive. After the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, his living situation stabilized and he achieved a new level of serenity in his work. Mancini died in Rome in 1930 and was buried in the Basilica Santi Bonifacio e Alessio on the

Aventine Hill The Aventine Hill (; la, Collis Aventinus; it, Aventino ) is one of the Seven Hills on which ancient Rome was built. It belongs to Ripa, the modern twelfth ''rione'', or ward, of Rome. Location and boundaries The Aventine Hill is the sou ...

. His painting ''The Poor Schoolboy'', exhibited in the Salon of 1876, is in the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French ar ...

of Paris. Its realist subject matter and dark palette are typical of his early work. Paintings by Mancini also may be seen in Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, the Museo Civico-Galleria d'Arte Moderna in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...

, and other galleries in Italy. The first exhibition in the U.S. devoted exclusively to Mancini's work was at the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

, October 20, 2007 – January 20, 2008, a museum which owns fifteen oil paintings and three pastels by Mancini that were a gift of New York City art dealer Vance N. Jordan.

Gallery

File:Antonio Mancini - Lo Scugnizzo.jpg, ''Lo scungizzo''
(The Clever Urchin) File:Antonio Mancini - Il Malatino.jpg, ''Il Malatino''
(The Weakling), ca. 1878 Antonio Mancini - Standard Bearer of the Harvest Festival.jpg, ''Standard Bearer of the Harvest Festival'', ca. 1884 File:The Little Seminary.jpg, ''Prevetariello in Preghiera''
(The Little Seminarian, 1872) Antonio Mancini - Portrait of John Lowell Gardner.jpg, ''Portrait of

John Lowell Gardner II John Lowell "Jack" Gardner Jr. (November 26, 1837 – December 10, 1898) was an American businessman, art collector, and philanthropist. He and his wife, Isabella Stewart Gardner, were patrons of the arts whose collection is now housed in the Isabe ...

'', 1895 File:Antonio Mancini - Canción alegre.jpg, ''Allegra canzone''
(Happy Song) Image:Antonio Mancini - Il Saltimbanco (1879).jpg, ''Il Saltimbanco''
(the Acrobat), 1879

References

*Ulrich W. Hiesinger (2007). "Antonio Mancini: Nineteenth-Century Italian Master" (Philadelphia Museum of Art), Yale University Press. * Broude, Norma (1987). ''The Macchiaioli: Italian Painters of the Nineteenth Century''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. *http://www.philamuseum.org

External links

Biography: ''Portrait of a young girl''Selected works in Academic ClassicismShort biography
* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/arts/design/04manc.html ''Tumultuous Mind, Spread Across Canvas'' by Roberta Smith, The New York Times, Art Review, 4 Jan 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:Mancini, Antonio 1852 births 1930 deaths 19th-century Italian painters Italian male painters 20th-century Italian painters Members of the Royal Academy of Italy Painters from Naples Accademia di Belle Arti di Napoli alumni 19th-century Italian male artists 20th-century Italian male artists