Giuseppe Mentessi (29 September 1857 in Ferrara, - 14 June 1931 in Milan) was an Italian painter🎨, engraver and teacher. He was born into a peasant family and lost his father when he was five.
His mother managed to send him to drawing classes at the Civico Ateneo in Ferrara, where Gaetano Previati🎨 was his classmate, and then to the Accademia di Belle Arti in Parma, where he studied decoration and stage design.
Between 1877-1881 he attended the Accademia di Brera in Milan and was introduced by Previati into the circle of Gli Scapigliati.
His friendships with Emilio Longoni (1859-1932)🎨, Cesare Tallone, Leonardo Bistolfi🎨 and the socialist lawyer Luigi Majno date from this time.
In 1880 Mentessi won a prize at the Scuola di Architettura and became assistant to Luca Beltrami at the Brera, beginning a lifelong career as a teacher of architectural drawing and geometry.
In 1887 he was appointed Professor of Landscape Painting at the Brera and in the early years of the 20th century he also gave courses at the Società Umanitaria in Milan. Due to his friendship with the Swiss painter Luigi Rossi (1853-1923)🎨, he acted as a consultant in the commission for the teaching of drawing in the canton of Ticino.
He was also active in organizing exhibitions.
In the 1890s Mentessi painted landscapes and pictures dealing with social issues, among them Our Daily Bread (1894; Ferrara, Gal. Civ. A. Mod.), which was shown at the first Venice Biennale in 1895. The theme of the painting is pellagra, a disease caused by malnutrition that was widespread in the Ferrarese countryside.
Gradually he developed his own manner of depicting poverty and suffering, central to which is the theme of motherhood, in either a secular or a religious context.
Apart from imaginative compositions, he worked on engravings from the beginning of the 20th century.
With Sad Vision (1899; Venice, Ca' Pesaro), a large pastel exhibited in Paris in 1900, Mentessi began a series of works on religious subjects in the Symbolist vein.
With Gloria (1901; Rome, G.N.A. Mod.), which was much acclaimed when it was exhibited in Venice in 1901, the artist took up the theme of anti-militarism.
This he repeated in various minor works during World War I.
The triptych Passion Week (1914; Ferrara, Gal. Civ. A. Mod.) has, in the scene of a massacre, intense passages of raw realism.
MENTESSI, Giuseppe - Pittore, nato a Ferrara il 29 settembre 1857, morto a Milano il 14 giugno 1931.
Studiò dapprima nell'ateneo di Ferrara, quindi nell'Accademia di belle arti di Parma e dal 1877 alla R. Accademia di Brera.
Quivi nel 1880 cominciò la sua carriera d'insegnante, durata quarant'anni.
S'interessò alle fatiche e ai dolori degli umili, che espresse in opere piene di sincera commozione.
Sono tra le migliori:
Ora triste (esposizione di Brera, 1891),
Panem nostrum quotidianum (1894; Ferrara, Pinacoteca civica),
Visione triste (Internazionale di Parigi del 1900),
Settimana di Passione (1914).
Esaltò il sentimento della maternità in ogni sua manifestazione, talvolta lieta, più spesso triste: così Ombra (1903), Eterno altare, Morticino (1905; Milano, Galleria d'arte moderna), trovandone la più compiuta espressione nel trittico Gloria (1901; Roma, Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna).
Profondamente amante della natura, cercò di renderne con umile cuore la più riposta poesia: Prato fiorito (1889) è tra le sue cose più significative.
Di tutti i luoghi d'Italia in cui soggiornò, fissò i vari aspetti: specie Venezia e Assisi, di cui espresse il mistico raccoglimento in alcuni studi dal vero che gli valsero la medaglia d'oro🎨 nella mostra francescana del 1927, ma soprattutto Roma che gli ispirò i suoi più bei disegni, in cui eccellono le sue doti di disegnatore e di prospettico. | © Treccani, Enciclopedia Italiana
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