The moving painting of the humble. Giuseppe Mentessi on display in his Ferrara

In Ferrara at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Giuseppe Mentessi (Ferrara, 1857 Milan, 1931) drew and painted, an artist defined by Vittorio Pica as an artist of feeling, because he made almost each of his works a hymn to love, pain, and pity. At first glance, the large canvases, as well as the preparatory studies for his works, exude feeling, expressing a story full of sensations that the viewer welcomes within himself, in his soul, to lead him in most cases to true and intimate emotion. Indeed, such is the emotional state that accompanies him during a visit to the exhibition dedicated to the Ferrara artist, entitled Giuseppe Mentessi. Artist of Feeling, and set up right in his hometown, inside the Pinacoteca Nazionale di Ferrara, until June 10, 2018: three completely renovated rooms temporarily hosting almost a hundred works by Giuseppe Mentessi, including sketches, studies and paintings of various sizes, from large canvases to drawings on sheets as small as post-it notes. A small exhibition, of only three rooms, but a very intense one that, as previously mentioned, conveys to the visitor a whirlwind of emotions, of feelings that will not disappear so easily once they cross the exit door of the Palazzo dei Diamanti.

Moreover, in conjunction with Giuseppe Mentessi. Artist of Feeling, and then until June 10, visitors will be able (and the writer recommends it) to go down to the ground floor of the Palazzo dei Diamanti and delve into the theme of feelings with the exhibition States of Mind. Art and Psyche between Previati and Boccioni, an intense journey around the poetics of states of mind in Italian painting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Therefore, it can be said that the reference years are the same for both exhibitions: in particular, the former focuses on the period between 1890 and 1909, the central and most significant years of Mentessi’s artistic production. The latter had been defined not only as an artist of sentiment by Vittorio Pica, but also by the critic Vittore Grubicy and the writer Neera: Grubicy declared that Mentessi was among the best representatives of the trend that aimed at the ’expression of feelings that move the soul, while the writer called him the great sentimentalist, the sentimentalist par excellence.

Grubicy had also provided the most followed and enduring critical interpretation regarding the First Brera Triennale of 1891, at which Mentessi had presented to the public his work entitled Ora Triste. Even before its inauguration, the Triennale had already been the subject of a critique by the art critic Bocciarelli, as he asserted that the Italian art of that time was not able to make itself a faithful mirror of its times and that the artist had not planted his easel in those gloomy workshops where our worker sweats a meager bread among the hum of pulleys and the whirring of belts that at every step undermine his life. Those were indeed times when the workers’ living and working conditions were rather complicated and tiring, punctuated by constant daily suffering; the social question was the great nightmare, the terrible concern that every day more and more imposed itself on the civilized world in this end of the century, as Grubicy stated.

Bocciarelli lamented the total indifference to the social question on the part of art and artists. On the contrary, Grubicy had identified in his essay published in Pensiero Italiano three characteristics of the First Brera Triennial that expressed a favorable orientation toward it: the presence of an ideist painting that contrasted with the Symbolist tendency in vogue, that is, ideas were expressed in a formal language closer to abstraction rather than remaining anchored in the objective representation of reality; the widespread tendency to privilege the expression of feelings that move the soul; and the inclination to express with the greatest possible effectiveness certain emotions, the beauty of which resides primarily in the intensity of the effects produced by light, whether circumscribed or diffuse.

A room of the exhibition Giuseppe Mentessi. Artist of feeling

A room of the exhibition Giuseppe Mentessi. Artist of feeling

A room from the exhibition Giuseppe Mentessi. Artist of feeling

Painting most illustrative of the painting of sentiment was Mentessi’sOra Triste, where the artist’s gentle soul, deeply tôted by tender and affectionate emotion, shines through his work naked, palpitating, almost veiled in piteous tears. And Grubicy adds: That funeral convoy in the twilight hour, that delightful group dominated by the maiden whose heartbreaking sobs are heard, that melancholy veil, which wraps in suave liliaceous evanescence the grand scene of nature, which with its loving and caressing hues seems to want to soothe human grief... is a gentle poem, a mournful and suave elegy, which puts us in unison with the good soul of the artist and makes us good in turn. Visitors to the Ferrara exhibition will not have a chance to see the originalOra Triste , as it is under restoration, but they will be able to admire the sketch of the work and two preparatory studies, from the Ferrara Galleries of Modern and Contemporary Art. The sketch depicts a funeral of people of humble conditions: in the foreground are two women, one of whom is covering her face with her hands as a sign of despair, and the other next to her is looking at her and wrapping her shoulders to comfort her. In a more distant position from the latter is a procession of female figures with their heads covered. The scene is dominated by earthy colors, but the twilight light illuminates the sculpture of Christ carrying the cross. The preparatory studies in the exhibition are two drawings in charcoal on paper and sanguine on paper, depicting in the first case the two main female figures, on whom the moving aspect of the work is focused, and in the second case the woman with the veil on her head standing next to the woman with her hands to her face.

Comparable to these latter preparatory studies are the preparatory drawings and etchings, shown in the exhibition, of another work by Mentessi, Lagrime, from 1894, which was presented at the next edition of the Brera Triennale: here two women mourn on the ground on the steps of a church a man killed during an argument. TheOra Triste had been praised by critics for its depicted subject matter, marking Mentessi’s debut in painting social subjects-a genre that led the public to be moved. However, critics had made complaints about the execution, the formal rendering. Foremost among them was Bocciarelli himself, who had said,Now Triste is a lilac evanescence that envelops sky and earth in a melancholy veil. The audience, which has a tender heart, feels the scene but does not admit the color, which is why the painting did not enter completely into its good graces, and to tell the truth, I also feel that here the art has somewhat exceeded, becoming in a certain way artifice. Harsher had been the judgment of the painter Francesco Vismara, who said that the work lacks solidity, and an excessive diffusion of light makes everything seem to be on one plane [...]The execution of the painting, the painting, lacks intensity in such a way that all feeling disappears. It is a soul without a body.

Giuseppe Mentessi, Sketch for Sad Hour (ca. 1890; oil on panel, 49 x 75 cm; Ferrara, Gallerie dArte Moderna e Contemporanea)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Woman with Veil on Head, Study for Sad Hour (sanguine on paper glued to cardboard, 500 x 360 mm; Ferrara, Gallerie dArte Moderna e Contemporanea)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Two Weeping Women on a Reclining Man Study for Tears (ca. 1894; sanguine on paper, 386 x 457 mm; Ferrara, Gallerie dArte Moderna e Contemporanea)

Moving the visitor during the exhibition is another extraordinary and touching work, whose large one-to-one sketch is also in the exhibition: this is Visione triste, made in 1899. It is from Assicoop Modena&Ferrara’s purchase of the preparatory sketch and studies of emotionally charged paintings that the idea for this exhibition celebrating Giuseppe Mentessi was born. The original work, on the other hand, is on loan from the Ca’ Pesaro Gallery of Modern Art in Venice. The theme depicted is a depiction of the humble living conditions of peasants: a group of peasants in a barren countryside is slumped to the ground under the weight of crosses; the center of the scene, on which the visitor’s eye inevitably lingers, is occupied by a mother who holds her child lovingly, lifting him from the weight of the cross.

The preparatory sketch shows some changes from the final work: in the former, the light brightens the mother’s blond hair and her child’s white robe, while in the latter, the glow is concentrated on the horizon, as if to signify the arrival of new hope for life, as opposed to the painting’s predominant rather dark tones. Another difference concerns the figure that can be seen in the foreground on the right, in both cases on the ground: in the sketch she has black hair, while in the final work she has no hair and an elderly woman in an obvious state of despair can be glimpsed behind her. Moreover, in the original painting preserved in Venice, young arms can be seen on the right hand side releasing the man who has fallen to the ground due to the weight of the cross: a gesture that refers to filial piety. Depictions of peasants were discovered in a series of drawings that were part of Mentessi’s work files, highlighting the various stages of making Visione triste. Some of these are on display in the exhibition: in some a peasant is depicted working in the fields or pensive while leaning against the spade, in others he is depicted malnourished, thin, bare-chested with his gaze downward as he stares at the spade on the ground, or in still other cases lying on the ground in front of the spade. These drawings from his folders were given titles such as Al tempo della pellagra that traced the subject back to the fight against pellagra, a disease that continually claimed victims in the countryside of the Po Valley and was caused by malnutrition and the worsening living conditions of farm laborers, Pel mi signore that indicated total devotion to the landowner, or the so-called resigned that implied despair resulting in prostration on the ground.

For the creation of Sad Vision, Mentessi had linked the depiction of the peasants to religious iconography by adding a cross on the shoulders to the laborers on the ground, and also substituted in the center of the work for the figure of the cross-bearing peasant the symbolic maternal group, in which the mother lifts the child from the weight of the cross. The spade, present both in the aforementioned folder drawings and in the close-up of Sad Vision, was defined by the artist himself as a terrible weapon, a symbol of an ancient pain: Mentessi also did not understand what on earth that wonderful and terrible istrument seeks in the earth, it seeks blood, life, life that the poor creature working the earth does not have. During the tour, it is then possible to listen to the lyric that the poet Ada Negri had composed in 1900 inspired by Visione triste: in the course of the poetic composition, the visitor, who has just been able to admire the sketch of the painting, recognizes the parts of the painting that inspired the author. The verses they recite Per l’erta ove non trema alito o voce / penosamente vanno; e ognun di loro / curva le spalle sotto la sua croce lead back to the scene of the peasants on the ground fallen under the weight of the cross; Ecco, un tremulo vecchio al suol s’accascia, / col viso a terra; e l’ombra de la croce / grava su quell’orrenda ultima ambascia. [ ] And the arm that reaches out to him / as if to rescue him, is of him who equal / life of hardship and renunciation awaits are words that recall the young arms seen on the right of the painting; But you smile, O pale, serene / mother’s face that through the rugged way / your creature you clasp to your breast!: this is the central scene of the maternal group.

Giuseppe Mentessi, Sad Vision (1899; tempera and pastel on canvas-backed cardboard, 139 x 238 cm; Venice, Galleria Internazionale di Ca Pesaro 2018) © Archivio Fotografico - Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia

Giuseppe Mentessi, Sketch for Sad Vision (ca. 1899; charcoal, pastel and white lead on paper applied to canvas, 136.5 x 229.5 cm; Modena, Assicoop Modena-Ferrara collection)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Contadino in ginocchio con croce sulle spalle, Studio per Visione triste (c. 1898-99; charcoal on paper, 336 x 242 mm; Ferrara, Gallerie dArte Moderna e Contemporanea)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Peasant sitting on the ground in front of a spade, Study for Al tempo della pellagra Visione triste (c. 1898; charcoal on paper, 240 x 338 mm; Ferrara, Gallerie dArte Moderna e Contemporanea)

Sad Vision had marked for Mentessi the turn toward symbolism: what had moved him in that direction had been the Milanese repression of May 1898 and the social consequences of the first Pelloux government, whose prospects were not favorable for the workers’ movement, while on the artistic level Mentessi had approached the research and techniques of Gaetano Previati (Ferrara, 1852 Lavagna, 1920), a friend since his early studies in Ferrara and later rediscovered at the Brera Academy, who had taken an interest in religious themes and led him to the creation between 1901 and 1902 of the Stations of the Cross preserved in the Vatican Museums and until May 20, 2018 on display at the Museo Diocesano in Milan. Mentessi had taken from Previati the technique of long strands of color, which the former had modified by using both pastel and tempera in a mixed technique, a stylistic feature that later became his constant. Critics had once again turned out to be unfavorable to the painting’s technique of execution; among others, Mario Pilo considered the work stringy and dirty as if it were woven of hay and straw, but also effective in its gloomy metaphor, of the unhappy ones who go, panting, groaning, falling, each under the oppressive weight of his cross. Nevertheless, Sad Vision was exhibited at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair and won a silver medal.

Another nucleus of works focuses on the painting Ramingo (1909), which is displayed in the exhibition along with the tempera on paper sketch and preparatory studies. Here, too, the sketch shows a change from the final work: the artist has inserted a maternal group descending the steps of a church at the point where, in the original painting, a weary traveler with a cane is instead depicted struggling up the steps of a cathedral. What remains unchanged is the striking and touching Christ at the column to the right of both figures: he leans so far out, both toward the maternal group and the traveler, that he seems to address each of them. In the final work there is a real dialogue between Christ at the pillar and the poor pilgrim, the former in an attitude of comfort with obvious patheticism toward the figure of the humble wayfarer, the latter in turn leaning out distraught toward the image of the suffering Christ. Moreover, the pilgrim’s path on the staircase appears marked by the statues of Christ and the martyrs placed along it, in a highly symbolic compositional play: an aspect further strengthened by the use of light, which illuminates the martyrs and leaves the group of the wayfarer and Christ in the shadows. The preparatory studies in the exhibition analyze precisely these two particular subjects: the Christ at the column tending and curving more and more toward the wayfarer, and the pilgrim with staff leaning wearily seeking comfort. The large cathedral staircase on which the painting is set is inspired by the side ramp of the church of San Martino in Veduggio, which the artist has slightly varied by enriching it with Baroque statues. The same staircase is also found in a series of etchings titled Il dramma del giorno della sagra, a popular tragedy in four acts that depicts in its various scenes The Assault, The Funeral, The Quiet Returns,The Loving Flame of the Cemetery.

Giuseppe Mentessi, Ramingo (1909; pastel and tempera; Lugano, MASI - Museo darte della Svizzera italiana)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Christ at the Column, Study for Ramingo (c. 1909; charcoal on paper, 326 x 254 mm; Modena, AssiCoop Ferrara&Modena collection)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Pilgrim with Stick, Study for Ramingo (c. 1909; charcoal on paper, 326 x 254 mm; Modena, AssiCoop Ferrara&Modena collection)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Stairway of Veduggio Church, Study for Tears (1894; watercolor ink and pencil on paper, 143 x 214 mm; Ferrara, Gallerie dArte Moderna e Contemporanea)

Giuseppe Mentessi, The Drama of the Festival Day, Laggressione (1894; etching, 275 x 296 mm; Ferrara, Gallerie dArte Moderna e Contemporanea)

With Ramingo the climax of Mentessi’s artistic production, focused on social themes, seems to have come to an end, and with it the focus of the Ferrara exhibition. The last section brings together drawings from the collections of Assicoop Modena &Ferrara that show visitors studies and sketches on notebook pages and makeshift sheets, some the size of business cards. One can see the Portrait of Mother with the traditional system of squaring, the Bust of a Man with Hands to Face, Acquafredda Abbey in Lenno, caricature portraits, profile portraits, studies of hands, the beautiful landscape studies with views of Assisi, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and Lake Como.

All in all, Mentessi was an artist who was a protagonist of the painting of feeling, of that painting that leads to emotion and reflection on themes fundamental to the era in which he lived and which are well presented in this small but significant exhibition.

Giuseppe Mentessi, Labbazia dellAcquafredda a Lenno (pencil on paper, 260 x 340 mm; Modena, AssiCoop Ferrara&Modena collection)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Portrait of his mother (pencil on paper, 208 x 276 mm; Modena, AssiCoop Ferrara&Modena collection)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Glimpse of the facade of the Upper Basilica of Assisi (pencil on paper, 174 x 122 mm; Modena, AssiCoop Ferrara&Modena collection)

Giuseppe Mentessi, Village view of a lake (pencil on paper, 134 x 104 mm; Modena, AssiCoop Ferrara&Modena collection)

Caricatures of Giuseppe Mentessi

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