Francesco Paolo Michetti , the artist from Naples with Style and Truth

In this presentation as part of our video library on artists, we will look at two main thoughts regarding the art of picture making, that of style and of truth. In style, we'll concern ourselves with it, as would define an artist or personality, that identifies the artist's work, like a signature or trademark or peculiar structure inherent in the artist's work. Then with the idea of truth, as is often referred to in producing art, and how, over many centuries, the idea of painting truth to nature is mentioned, and what does it actually mean to a painter. As we delve into these two topics, we will consider the work of Italian artist Francesco Paolo Michetti, a popular and unconventional artist who developed his artistic skills from homegrown sources in Naples. Francesco Paolo Michetti was born in 1851 in Tocco da Casauria, formerly the province of Chieti, but today sits in Pescara. As a child, Francesco had shown a talent for painting, and by the age of ten, his gift was taken much more seriously. There is the story that he had watched a display by tightrope walkers that visited his town, and his attention was caught by a young girl who moved like a butterfly, weightlessly on a tightrope high in the air. He borrowed his brother Quintilio's brushes and colors, and reproduced the scene wonderfully, a life of drawing and painting beckoned. The art bug had bitten and urged by the suggestion of the painter Marchiani, Francesco wrote to the community of the province of Chieti to ask for a grant to enable him to develop his painting. That was in 1864, at the tender age of thirteen. However, his first petition went unanswered, but he tried again after three months, explaining that a monthly check would help him continue his studies in Naples, and he included this petition by explaining, Even though my strength lays in the art of instinct and nature, with a strong feeling for the beautiful, I feel pained that my genius will not be realized, and remain secondary, if not rescued by supportive action and compassion. He was finally awarded a small grant per month, and he heads to Naples. In Naples, the artist Domenico Morelli was one of the most influential instructors at the Academy. His work and the practice of sight-size painting gave the painters a practical way to capture the figure or portrait with comparative ease. Morelli won many awards and distinctions, and was named Honorary Professor of the Principal Academies of Italy and Europe, and in 1886, was knighted a senator by the king. Among his many pupils were Giuseppe Costa, Vittorio Corcos, Giuseppe Boschetto, Antonio Mancini, and Francesco to name a few. However, Francesco would encounter his foremost influence in Naples, with whom he befriended, the Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny at the Academy, his senior by a generation, but whose style was so distinctive that he would find admirers in France and England. And as part of our look at the term style, Fortuny exemplifies it, and one that Francesco found much to his liking. It was the general surrounding of forms from the outside, with a delicate use of line, to further develop the contours that were so attractive, we will examine more fully its relation to truth, as we further define the terms. Francesco was hard at work, given the inspiration and productive painters that were around him, and by 1881, he gathered together some 34 paintings for his exhibition in Milan. They consisted mostly of faces and character studies, which is often the intriguing aspect for artists to develop further and lust after for endless practice. At the exhibition, he was seen as very prolific. One reviewer states that it was a phantasmagoria of form and colour that reveals the fecundity and courage of the artist, and further describes the zealous and ecstatic devotion of the lower classes. However, often reviewers are clueless about a painter's real aims, and it is the inquisitive search for the unusual and interesting that attracts certain subjects, not entirely a surface cover only. Francesco is described as having a temperament violent, yet refined, restless, irrepressibly investigational. While he lived at a picturesque Francavilla al Mare, and is known for his pastoral scenes, his output included historic and religious themes. Much of the time he appears less worried about finish than to just keep going, a trait common enough among geniuses. He favoured pastels as a quick medium for searching out his ideas with sketches and portraits to keep fresh with momentum enough to not get distracted. Francesco frequented the Abruzzos, a region situated across from Rome with their unspoiled nature, and was his main source of inspiration. His romantic nostalgia was able to interpret the scenes he witnessed, and present his own unique twist. In the painting of the couple atop a rocky boulder, there is the soft romantic element elegantly choreographed above a majestic view below. Compositionally, the all-embracing rock encircles the couple, with the added smaller ones that might underscore the challenges ahead with the broken design at their feet. Francesco explored a variety of irregular sizes and poses for his paintings, searching out small stories of everyday life, washerwomen at work, the small shepherdess with a staff, a device he used frequently, or a situation that he witnessed of young damsels walking along with the notice of men and boys that paused to take in the passerby. On one such occasion, it was an idea he had long pondered. Some years previously, he and his old painter friend had witnessed a nasty scene in the mountain village of Tocco da Cassuaria when a young woman had been chased by a band of drunken, lusting farm workers in the blazing summer heat. Michetti made a large painting and a number of studies based on the scene, entitling it, Giorio's Daughter. The picture was exhibited at the Venice Biennale of 1895. Francesco always longed to make his mark and did so with a few epic canvases. They were the kind of pictures that required a good deal of preparation, as in his Il Voto, which describes a scene the artist and a friend witnessed in the small town of Miglianico the painter was hoping to photograph the festive church ritual from the balcony. And while the proceedings were unfolding, a magnesium flash from the camera enveloped the church, causing the crowd to become agitated, and a thunder strike happened about the same time, causing even more panic, to which the worshippers sought to chase the artists accusing them of profanity against the saint of San Panatalione's statue. Shortly afterwards, a hailstorm hit and destroyed the harvest in the fields around the town. It is the anger of the saint the people screamed, looking at the balcony from where the flash had appeared. They immediately sought to put things right. The most frantic of them took sickles, hay forks, and hatchets and headed towards the two artists who struggled to run away from the angered crowd. It is from this experience that Machete realized the giant painting. In 1877, Francesco painted his Corpus Christi procession, a highly colorful, effervescent depiction of a festival. He became recognized as one of the best artists in the school's exhibition. Returning to our terms, style and truth, we find in this work how they are revealed. It was said of this painting that it clearly represents something that is not a procession. It does represent love for the most beautiful things in life women, children, and flowers. What the artist saw most clearly, what perhaps was first born in his mind, is that a woman standing with her baby in her arms, coming down the stairs fantastically dressed, and elastic fingers which squeeze the pink dimples, and adding more figures continued to develop into a picture, states this reviewer. So, with a certain truth to nature, that is, it faithfully represents something the artist thought he saw, and in style he gave it his own twist, which was particularly decorative, albeit not accurate, but personalized, simply joining together the two elements, as a painter. In other words, it is a far more magnificent canvas that expresses the epic poetry of the painter than that sings the song of facts alone. Any artist, however, greater poet he may be. There must be a lot of feeling in the contemporaneous landscape and figurative art, but when too much of it is a personal feeling, and not enough of the sense, the sentiment, the mood of nature, then the whole is lost. Francesco made his style to be one of the mind, with a devotion enough to truth, meaning truth to nature, and that is the substance of a very satisfying picture. It's the mystery of what we call talent. In closing, we have a touching story of Michetti's legacy by Elisa Fulvi. She writes, When Michetti passed in March of 1929, a deep feeling of sadness was felt amongst his friends of Senacolo. His friend the poet, Gabriele D'Annunzio, who was then living in the north of Italy, did not attend the funeral, but sent daily messages to the family. In this correspondence, Michetti's wife, Donna Annunziata, asked D'Annunzio to collect memories of her husband to make into a small book. Her words were, To you that have been his brother, I ask from you a word that could make him live in all his greatness and all his goodness. Can I count on you? On the same day, D'Annunzio received another mail from the friend, Ugo Oggetti, from Florence, asking, What shall we do for Michetti and his memory? Do consider that no book exists about Francesco, and D'Annunzio believed it would be a fitting tribute to create an art book with all of his masterpieces. The writer, Tommaso Silani, who already knew and had spent some time with Michetti, was the person charged with its writing. However, there was something else his friends would do for his memory. In 1934, the Naples newspaper, Il Mattino, proposed to found a museum dedicated to the painter. The writer goes on to tell the many steps it took to wrangle through politics, that a museum would finally be established to contain his major works. Many other Italian newspapers and people in the worlds of politics, art, and literature embraced the initiative and declared how nice it would be to add the two larger paintings in the new museum. And the two largest pictures were finally returned to Francavilla in the brand new museum shown here, dedicated to his great friend, Francesco Paolo Michetti. In closing, we hope you enjoyed reviewing the art of Michetti, as he deserves a lasting tribute. There are many more works by the artist that were not shown, or where images weren't found. A very unique artist, in every respect. So it is, that style and truth remain an interesting combination and a way of thinking for the painter's consideration. And finally, we wish to thank our subscribers, and remember to leave a like to help the channel. And, until next time, it's bye for now.