Studio: international art (88.1924)

MONZA—PITTSBURGH

THE BRITISH PAVILION, VENICE
INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION

MONZA.—An exhibition of excep-
tional interest, which was opened at
the end of May in the Villa Reale of
Monza, and will remain open through the
summer, is that of the great Milanese
painter of the last century, Mose Bianchi.
I call him great because such was really
his position in regard to the art of his
time : he might be considered as almost
a " capo-scuola" among the Lombard
painters of his time, and looking at his
work no one can fail to be impressed by
its fecundity and brilliancy of execution.
The present exhibition, organised by the
Consorzio Milano - Monza - Umanitaria,
commemorates the twentieth anniversary
of the painter's death in 1904 ; and Guido
Marangoni, to whose organising power
these Monza exhibitions owe so much, in
an admirable monograph which has just
come into my hands, gives this artist his
due place among the constellation of
brilliant Lombards who expressed the new
forces which were surging up in Italy as a
nation of art—Faruffini, Tranquillo Cre-
mona, Ranzoni, Mose Bianchi, the veteran
Filippo Carcano—whom it was my privi-
lege to know before he passed away—and,
coming later into the field, Giovanni
Segantini and Gaetano Previati. 0 a
The period of Bianchi was that of the
subject picture, and it was naturally to
this—apart from his portraits and his
admirable marines, frequently of Chioggia
—that he devoted his fecund genius. But
here—as Marangoni justly remarks—he
did not admit, even in his portraits, the
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" statica " of the pose ; he willed to render
to the full the life within and without, he
sought in the external movement, in the
physical characteristics, the inner psycho-
logy, the intimate passions of the person
represented. What no doubt helped him
in this effort was his strange and marvellous
pictorial memory of " effects." Having
observed a scene, a moment of light—it
has been said of him—he would run home
to reproduce it on his canvas with startling
fidelity; and he had also the rare talent of
keeping the impression of the seen image
with almost miraculous exactitude within
his mind. Examples of this externalised
emotion are two paintings above all, one of
which is reproduced on the opposite page,
the Monaca di Monza and the Fratelli nel
Campo (Brothers at the Front), where
all the passionate enthusiasm of awakening
Italy finds expression in the group of
praying women. In his Cleopatra, with her
superb unveiled torso, he fails to give the
woman who held Caesar and Anthony, and
almost Rome, within her grasp, a 0

I am obliged to leave at this point this
interesting master in order to speak of a
matter which has considerable immediate
interest for ourselves. The British Pavilion
at Venice was handed over in 1909 by that
City to our Committee, who have been
responsible for our share in these important
biennial exhibitions. A letter recently pub-
lished by one of that Committee seems to
suggest the desirability of a change ; and
I know that the wish of the Venice author-
ities is that the Pavilion should be in the
hands of our own Government. The ex-
pense of its upkeep and necessary repairs
would not be great; and structurally—as
the President of the Exhibition assured me
last month—it is one of the best buildings
in the grounds, though something might
be advisably spent on internal decoration.

Standing on a slight elevation, the
Pavilion, as will be seen in our illustration,
makes a very good impression. S. B.

PITTSBURGH. — European painters
secured all the prizes, with one excep-
tion, at the 23rd International Exhibition
of paintings opened at the Carnegie
Institute, April 24th. The first prize, of
$1,500, was awarded to Mr. Augustus
John for his portrait of Madame Suggia ;