Carlo Mancini (

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, 1829–1910) was an Italian painter noted for his rural scenes and Oriental subjects.

Biography

Born into a Milanese family of ancient and noble lineage, Carlo Mancini grew up in a liberal cultural climate and mixed with some of the leading figures in Milan’s musical world. Regular guests in the family villa at

Merate Merate (; Brianzöö: ) is a municipality of 15.020 inhabitants in the province of Lecco, in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. It is served by Cernusco-Merate railway station. History The name ''Melatum'' appeared for the first time ...

, included:

Gioachino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. He gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote man ...

Gaetano Donizetti Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian Romantic music, Romantic composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the ''be ...

and

Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi ( ; ; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for List of compositions by Giuseppe Verdi, his operas. He was born near Busseto, a small town in the province of Parma ...

as well as

Arrigo Boito Arrigo Boito (; born Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito; 24 February 1842 10 June 1918) was an Italian librettist, composer, poet and critic whose only completed opera was ''Mefistofele''. Among the operas for which he wrote the libretto, libretti ar ...

, with whom he formed a close friendship. It was probably the landscape painter Rinaldo Barbiano di Belgioso, an uncle on his mother’s side, who first interested him in painting. Given that the only evidence of his studies under the guidance of Giuseppe Bisi, then holder of the chair in landscape at the

Brera Academy The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan's main public mu ...

, is an end-of-course exam work of the mid-1850s (1857) and that his name appears on no official academic documents, it has recently been suggested that his pictorial apprenticeship took place outside the institution. At the culmination of his studies, in 1857, he exhibited ''Winter Morning'' at the International Exhibition in Paris. A trip in Brittany and Normandy led to early contact with English landscape painting and steered Mancini’s artistic interests towards faithful depiction from life but attenuated by late-Romantic overtones in the handling of light. Until he stopped showing work at exhibitions in 1875, he focused on rural subjects, mostly drawn from the countryside in Brianza and from memories of his youthful stay in

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

, which were favourably reviewed by critics and won him some marks of official recognition. In his later career, he visited Egypt, Arabia, India, Burma and China and brought home hundreds of sketches which he kept in a locked, iron chest until his death. In 1929, these sketches were donated to the Galleria Moderna d'Arte. From the 1870s, following his trip to the Far-East and Middle-East, his work included more Oriental subject matter.''Country Life,'' Limited, 1989, p. 226

Work

Mancini worked primarily in watercolour, however he occasionally worked in oil. File:Artgate Fondazione Cariplo - Mancini Carlo, Buoi aggiogati al carro sulle rive del Lago di Annone.jpg, Buoi Aggiogati al Carro Sulle Rive del Lago di Annone, 1857 File:CarloManciniEgypte.jpg, Coucher de Soleil sur les Pyramides d'Egypte, 1875 File:Mancini.JPG, le Désert d'Egypte

Select list of works

* ''November'' * ''Sunset over Po'' * ''Lombard Plains'' * ''Luogo Solitario'' * ''In Valle Brentano'' * ''On the shores of the Brenta''.

References

Bibliography

* Elena Lissoni
Carlo Mancini
online catalogu
Artgate
by

Fondazione Cariplo Fondazione Cariplo is a charitable foundation in Milan, Italy. It was created in December 1991 when the Amato law, Law no. 218 of 30 July 1990, came into force. Under this law, saving banks were required to separate into a not-for-profit foun ...

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