di Arthur R. Blumenthal, Ph.D.
Conferenza
The lecture will show some of the finest paintings in America by Francesco de Mura (1695-1782), the greatest artist of the late Baroque in Naples. De Mura’s superb draftsmanship and luminous colors in harmonious compositions of religious subjects, intense portraits, and mythological scenes will be shown. In search of De Mura’s work, Dr. Blumenthal, director emeritus of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, created a virtual tour of the great museums of Boston, New York, Chicago, Minneapolis, Washington, and elsewhere.Violinist Leonid Sushansky will perform a musical prelude with pieces by Nicola Porpora and Antonio Vivaldi.
MORE INFO:
Francesco De Mura
Arthur R. Blumenthal, PH.D.
Leonid Sushansky
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LOCATION:
Embassy of Italy/Italian Cultural Institute
3000 Whitehaven Street NW
Washington, DC 20008
FRANCESCO DE MURA (1696-1782)
Born in Naples in 1696, Francesco de Mura received his training in the studio of Domenico Viola and then in the studio of Francesco Solimena, where he was considered his most gifted student and remained for about twenty years (from 1708 to 1729). Thanks to the instruction of Solimena, Luca Giordano, Paolo de Matteis, and Giacomo del Po, De Mura acquired technical mastery and great capabilities with color. His first public work was a “Dead Christ on the Cross with St. John,” painted for the Neapolitan church of San Girolamo delle Monache. The lessons, above all, of neo-Pretian tenebrism, flow through this early work, inculcated with the discipline at Viola’s studio. He soon broke loose from Viola, later on favoring a continuous and gradual lightening, sweetening, and brightening of his color range.
De Mura received a wide circle of commissions, such as those to fresco the apse of the Nunziatella (the new church for the Jesuit novitiates) with the “Adoration of the Magi.” The Benedictines of the Abbey of Montecassino and those of the Neapolitan church of Santi Severino e Sossio offered him commissions of notable prestige with the enormous frescoes for the vault of this church representing “Saints Benedict and Scholastica Propagating the Rule of the Benedictine Order.” In 1741, he went to Turin, where he painted the frescoes in the Palazzo Reale, creating three “Stories of Theseus” (among the most beautiful and well preserved), five “Allegories of Women,” “Stories of Achilles,” and “The Olympic Games.”
Later, he was responsible, with Vanvitelli, for the decoration of the recently reconstructed church of the Santissima Annunziata in Naples. He was in charge of painting three very enormous canvases for the main altar and transept. In these years, many traumatic events occurred, such as the terrible eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1754 and the plague in 1764.
In 1778, he executed his final painting, “The Carmelite Martyrs Sant’Angelo, San Pier Tommaso, and the Blessed Franco,” in the Carmine Maggiore in Naples. He died in 1782. De Mura succeeded in expressing with great skill the refined and elusive intimacy of contemporary Neapolitan society thanks to his intense absorption of Solimena’s idiom and to his re-interpreting it in more delicate classicist-rococo terms. His vast quantity of work shows his constant preference for a subtle and intimate manner, both worldly and elegant, which eschews heroics and subtly conveys the most delicate emotions.
ARTHUR R. BLUMENTHAL, PH.D.
Arthur Blumenthal’s career as a museum professional began at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art and spans 40 years at some of America’s finest art museums. He is the founder of the museum-consulting firm Loving Art Partnerships and Director emeritus of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, where he served for nearly twenty years. The Cornell, one of the top college museums in America, houses Florida’s oldest and one of the Southeast’s most distinguished art collections, numbering close to 6,000 objects — from major Old Masters from the Kress collection to important Hudson River School paintings, among other treasures.
LEONID SUSHANSKY
Violinist Leonid Sushansky is the Artistic Director for the Arlington based National Chamber Ensemble. Mr. Sushansky was a scholarship student at the Juilliard School, and also had the privilege of being coached by the great violinist, Isaak Stern. Graduate studies were completed at the University of Maryland with Daniel Heifetz and the Guarneri Quartet. Mr.Sushansky is a Washington-based musician and often travels within the USA and to Europe to perform in major concert halls.