DOI Heft:
No. 319 (October 1919)
DOI Artikel:Pica, Vittorio: A young italian engraver: Benvenuto Disertori
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21359#0033
A YOUNG ITALIAN ENGRAVER: BENVENUTO DISERTORI
Vienna, where he joined the 11 faculty of
letters." This proved an inefficacious
remedy, and it was only a year later, upon
his return to Italy, that he discovered a
way which finally led him to peace of mind
and enabled him to work from then on with
both joy and profit. 0000
Unable to become a painter and unwil-
ling to become a writer, he came to the
conclusion, after an exhaustive and painful
spiritual analysis, that the art of engraving,
in which the gifts of printing and letters
can be successfully blended, was the best
adapted to give truthful expression to the
effect of reciprocal repercussions of the
outer world upon the inner world of his
impressions and emotions. 000
In 1908 he had already experimented
with two small engravings on pear-wood.
These, however, can only be considered as
first attempts, showing promise of a hand
which is to become master of a technique
which as yet it hardly knows. A truer and
firmer touch is evident in three wood-
engravings executed by Disertori between
1910 and 1912, entitled Tranquillity (Tran-
quilita), The Fountain filled with Earth (Fon-
tana piena di terra), and Cactus (Cactus). 0
The broad-sweeping lines engraved with
the burin on boxwood during 1913 to 1916
show gifts of composition and technique
developed to the very highest degree of
accuracy. Among the most praiseworthy
of these, to my mind, are a wholly delightful
little vignette for one of the stories from
Boccaccio's “ Decameron," and another,
full of fantasy and sensual charm and show-
ing a cleverly thought out decorative effect,
which the author has entitled The Niche
(La Nicchia). In these, apart from a vel-
vety delicacy of touch and carefully con-
sidered effects of contrasting masses of light
and shade, which provide a complete con-
trast to the dry style and geometrical lines
of the greater part of Disertori's work,
there is a singular charm in the voluptuous
modelling of young and beautiful nude
female figures, which reveal an unexpected
and bizarre aspect of licentiousness, almost
perversity, in his art, likening him to some
extent to his contemporaries, Rops, Beards-
ley, and Martini. 0000
This same flavour of provoking charm,
but mixed with a whimsical and capricious
imagination and a slight symbolical ten-
dency, is already to be found in two of the
lightest of his earlier metal engravings,
entitled Ivy (L’Edera) and The Little
Nymph (La Ninfetta). 000
In the spring of 1913 Disertori was at
last able to return to the delightful city of
Perugia, and from then on, without inter-
ruption, he devoted himself exclusively to
a characteristic series of engravings, por-
traying those urban scenes of bricks and
stones, ennobled by the history of past
centuries, as seen through eyes glowing
with admiration and a mind exalted with
the visions of splendid antiquity. 0 0
He not only presents scenes in Umbria,
u FRIEZE.” WOOD-ENGRAV-
ING BY B. M. DISERTORI
27
Vienna, where he joined the 11 faculty of
letters." This proved an inefficacious
remedy, and it was only a year later, upon
his return to Italy, that he discovered a
way which finally led him to peace of mind
and enabled him to work from then on with
both joy and profit. 0000
Unable to become a painter and unwil-
ling to become a writer, he came to the
conclusion, after an exhaustive and painful
spiritual analysis, that the art of engraving,
in which the gifts of printing and letters
can be successfully blended, was the best
adapted to give truthful expression to the
effect of reciprocal repercussions of the
outer world upon the inner world of his
impressions and emotions. 000
In 1908 he had already experimented
with two small engravings on pear-wood.
These, however, can only be considered as
first attempts, showing promise of a hand
which is to become master of a technique
which as yet it hardly knows. A truer and
firmer touch is evident in three wood-
engravings executed by Disertori between
1910 and 1912, entitled Tranquillity (Tran-
quilita), The Fountain filled with Earth (Fon-
tana piena di terra), and Cactus (Cactus). 0
The broad-sweeping lines engraved with
the burin on boxwood during 1913 to 1916
show gifts of composition and technique
developed to the very highest degree of
accuracy. Among the most praiseworthy
of these, to my mind, are a wholly delightful
little vignette for one of the stories from
Boccaccio's “ Decameron," and another,
full of fantasy and sensual charm and show-
ing a cleverly thought out decorative effect,
which the author has entitled The Niche
(La Nicchia). In these, apart from a vel-
vety delicacy of touch and carefully con-
sidered effects of contrasting masses of light
and shade, which provide a complete con-
trast to the dry style and geometrical lines
of the greater part of Disertori's work,
there is a singular charm in the voluptuous
modelling of young and beautiful nude
female figures, which reveal an unexpected
and bizarre aspect of licentiousness, almost
perversity, in his art, likening him to some
extent to his contemporaries, Rops, Beards-
ley, and Martini. 0000
This same flavour of provoking charm,
but mixed with a whimsical and capricious
imagination and a slight symbolical ten-
dency, is already to be found in two of the
lightest of his earlier metal engravings,
entitled Ivy (L’Edera) and The Little
Nymph (La Ninfetta). 000
In the spring of 1913 Disertori was at
last able to return to the delightful city of
Perugia, and from then on, without inter-
ruption, he devoted himself exclusively to
a characteristic series of engravings, por-
traying those urban scenes of bricks and
stones, ennobled by the history of past
centuries, as seen through eyes glowing
with admiration and a mind exalted with
the visions of splendid antiquity. 0 0
He not only presents scenes in Umbria,
u FRIEZE.” WOOD-ENGRAV-
ING BY B. M. DISERTORI
27