Studio: international art (8.1896)

An Italian Artist

accustomed, is received with the utmost diffidence.
They demand of an artist that he shall appeal
clearly to their senses and to their intelligence. It
is not difficult, then, to imagine how they regard
work like this, work left for the most part in a state
of sketchy incompleteness, and seeming to have
concealed within it something strange and abstruse;
and Conconi, well aware of this feeling on the part

of the public, laughs mischievously to himself
when he thinks of the bewildered faces of the
bourgeois before his canvases. But these good, easy
folk have few opportunities of being mystified by
Conconi, for he exhibits very seldom. Most of
his work is done for his own pleasure, and either
remains in his studio, or passes into the possession
of his friends. He is like a boy, loving to tell the
most marvellous tales of princesses, beautiful as the
moonbeams, and pages amorous as nightingales,
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and wizards strange and terrible as destiny. Amid
all the harassing stress of the world around him,
with its almost ferocious love of that which is prac-
tical and utilitarian, Conconi goes through life as it
were in a sort of vague intellectual reverie. The
realities of existence scarce seem to exist for him,
except as a starting-point for his flights into the
world of fantasy. All his works have an air of

unreality, like things not seen
but dreamt of, things tender
and pleasant, like a young
girl's fancy, things misty and
fearful, like the imaginings of
a dream.

His studio, close by the
busiest street in the city, is
like the abode of some necro-
mancer of old, with its strange
collection of mummified cats
and snakes and bats and
chameleons, filling all the
corners in grotesque and
monstrous shapes, and con-
juring up all sorts of fear-
some fancies. To go into
these rooms is like entering
into a fabled world of en-
chantment. Here Conconi
lives as it were in his own
natural atmosphere; for every-
thing weird and strange seems
full of attractiveness and sug-
gestion to him. It is his
curious disposition to seek
out the mysteries of things,
to see the abnormal side of
every object; and this, not
by a process of subtle inves-
tigation, but rather sponta-
neously, as his very first
impression; just as in his
conversation, which is aston-
ishingly picturesque and
amusing, he always talks in
a paradoxical, whimsical vein, ever uttering the
unexpected phrase, ever representing things in
caricature. And, indeed, while talking of this
peculiarity of his, it may be said that he has
produced some extraordinary caricatures, the like
of which can only be found in the drawings of
certain of the Japanese artists.

I have thought it well to bring into prominence
some of the more characteristic aspects of Con-
coni's personality, before touching upon his work;