Italo Mus
Encyclopedia
Italo Mus was an Italian
impressionist
painter.
; his father Eugene Mus was a sculptor from near Torgnon
.
His earliest artistic training took place in his father's workshop where he learn woodcarving. In 1909, recommended by Lorenzo Delleani
, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin
and followed the course of painting and drawing. Here his teachers included Giacomo Grosso
, Paolo Gaidano
, Luigi Onetti and Marchisio: artists faithful to the impressionist tradition, and who taught him the basics of art.
assembled some of the best known painters of the time, including Chagall, Raoul Dufy
, Jean Cocteau
and Picasso. This was the occasion when the young Mus first gained national recognition, being awarded first prize in the Young Painters’ Salon.
and restoration projects: first in Lyon
and then in Lausanne
and in Friesch near Briga in the Swiss the canton of Valais
.
He took part in the First World War, and while on leave he met Giuseppina Crenna. After the end of the war they married and in due course had four children.
In 1932 Mus was responsible for the Saint-Vincent war memorial. The work, modelled in clay
and then cast
in bronze
in Milan
, was of an Alpino
holding a weapon in his hand and with a fallen comrade across his knees. No trace of this monument remains: it was melted down in 1940 when its metal
was needed for the war effort.
In 1938 the art critic
Guido Marangoni saw Mus’s works in his studio and was impressed enough to write an article in the art journal Perseo, describing him as a “highly talented painter.” At that time Mus, along with Carlo Carrà
, Antonio Ligabue
, Pietro Morando and Francesco Menzio
, was among the most important artists of his generation.
For a time he worked in his studio at Saint-Vincent with Filippo De Pisis
; in 1956 some of his paintings were shown in New York
and Buenos Aires
.
In the mid-1960s, while still active, he fell victim to a serious disease which prevented him from continuing to work. Italo Mus died in Saint-Vincent on 15 May 1967.
His activity consists of three clearly defined periods.
1959), and the Premio Nazionale d'Arte Sacra (‘National Award for Sacred Art’, Rome 1960).
In 1979 the director Gianpaolo Taddeini made a fictionalised version of Mus’s life, based on a text by Ugo Ronfani, for the RAI
-Aosta Valley television station: A valley, a Painter: Italo Mus.
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
impressionist
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
painter.
Early years and family
Italo Mus was born in Châtillon to parents from the Aosta Valley. His mother Martina Vallaise was from a noble family of ArnadArnad
Arnad is a town and comune in the Aosta Valley region of north-western Italy....
; his father Eugene Mus was a sculptor from near Torgnon
Torgnon
Torgnon is a town and comune in the Aosta Valley region of north-western Italy....
.
His earliest artistic training took place in his father's workshop where he learn woodcarving. In 1909, recommended by Lorenzo Delleani
Lorenzo Delleani
Lorenzo Delleani was an Italian painter.-Biography:A pupil of Cesare Gamba and Carlo Arienti at the Albertina Academy in Turin, Delleani worked initially in the field of history painting and received various marks of official recognition...
, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
and followed the course of painting and drawing. Here his teachers included Giacomo Grosso
Giacomo Grosso
Giacomo Grosso was an Italian painter.-Biography:After spending his childhood at Glaveno seminary, Giacomo Grosso enrolled at the Accademia Albertina in Turin in 1873, thanks to a scholarship he was awarded by Cambiano Town Council...
, Paolo Gaidano
Paolo Gaidano
Paolo Gaidano was an Italian painter.Born at Poirino, from 1875 to 1878 he studied at the Accademia Albertina in Turin. He decorated the Cathedral of Carignano and several churches in Turin and other towns in Piedmont...
, Luigi Onetti and Marchisio: artists faithful to the impressionist tradition, and who taught him the basics of art.
First prize of Young Painters 1910
In 1910, the International Center for the Fine Arts in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
assembled some of the best known painters of the time, including Chagall, Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
and Picasso. This was the occasion when the young Mus first gained national recognition, being awarded first prize in the Young Painters’ Salon.
Later years
Although very committed to his native Aosta Valley, Mus spent short periods in 1913 working on frescoFresco
Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...
and restoration projects: first in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
and then in Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
and in Friesch near Briga in the Swiss the canton of Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
.
He took part in the First World War, and while on leave he met Giuseppina Crenna. After the end of the war they married and in due course had four children.
In 1932 Mus was responsible for the Saint-Vincent war memorial. The work, modelled in clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
and then cast
Casting
In metalworking, casting involves pouring liquid metal into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowing it to cool and solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process...
in bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, was of an Alpino
Alpini
The Alpini, , are the elite mountain warfare soldiers of the Italian Army. They are currently organized in two operational brigades, which are subordinated to the Alpini Corps Command. The singular is Alpino ....
holding a weapon in his hand and with a fallen comrade across his knees. No trace of this monument remains: it was melted down in 1940 when its metal
Metal
A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...
was needed for the war effort.
In 1938 the art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
Guido Marangoni saw Mus’s works in his studio and was impressed enough to write an article in the art journal Perseo, describing him as a “highly talented painter.” At that time Mus, along with Carlo Carrà
Carlo Carrà
Carlo Carrà was an Italian painter, a leading figure of the Futurist movement that flourished in Italy during the beginning of the 20th century. In addition to his many paintings, he wrote a number of books concerning art. He taught for many years in the city of Milan.-Biography:Carrà was born in...
, Antonio Ligabue
Antonio Ligabue
Antonio Ligabue was an Italian painter, one of the most important Naïve artists of the 20th century.He was born in Zurich, Switzerland, and died in Gualtieri, Reggio Emilia, Italy....
, Pietro Morando and Francesco Menzio
Francesco Menzio
Francesco Menzio , was an Italian painter.Francesco Menzio was born in Tempio Pausania, in Sardinia, from a Piedmontese family. He moved to Turin with his family in 1912 and started painting at the end of the First World War, in which he participated. He frequented the studio of Felice Casorati...
, was among the most important artists of his generation.
For a time he worked in his studio at Saint-Vincent with Filippo De Pisis
Filippo De Pisis
Filippo De Pisis was an Italian painter.-Biography:Filippo de Pisis was an Italian painter-poet who was born Luigi Filippo Tibertelli in Ferrara....
; in 1956 some of his paintings were shown in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
.
In the mid-1960s, while still active, he fell victim to a serious disease which prevented him from continuing to work. Italo Mus died in Saint-Vincent on 15 May 1967.
Work
Mus created about two thousand works: drawings, sketches, and paintings of subjects. For most of his life he used oil on canvas or panel.His activity consists of three clearly defined periods.
- First period: between 1920 and 1940 he created works that characterize the artist in his best years. He painted scenes of life in the Aosta Valley (interior scenes, haymaking, landscapes and dance).
- Second period: between 1941 and 1958, the style of the artist evolved, and his paintings became an excuse to make the color. The imagination takes precedence over reality and the artist also wanted to attract attention by using the technique of the effect of mold on absorbent paper.
- Third period: between 1959 and 1967, the artist returned to his roots with new drawings in ink and charcoal, and sketches for major works in public buildings in the valley. Mus revisited the subjects of his first period—haymaking scenes and interiors that represent a multitude of characters—with the same humanity, but with different characteristics from the paintings of the first period.
Prizes
His long and laborious work was rewarded by many prizes: the Prix Saint-Vincent (1922-1947-1949), the Prix de la Montagne (‘Prize of the Mountain’, Milan 1927), the Premio Einaudi (1950), the Premio Consiglio dei Ministri (‘Italian Cabinet Prize’, RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
1959), and the Premio Nazionale d'Arte Sacra (‘National Award for Sacred Art’, Rome 1960).
In 1979 the director Gianpaolo Taddeini made a fictionalised version of Mus’s life, based on a text by Ugo Ronfani, for the RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
-Aosta Valley television station: A valley, a Painter: Italo Mus.
Selected works
- The Revolution clog(1953), oil on panel, Martigny in SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
Fair of Valais; - Chickensdecent(1950), oil on canvas, XXV ((e)) Venice BiennaleVenice BiennaleThe Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
, Palais central; - Notre-Dame de Paris(1947), oil on canvas, ParisParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Galerie René Denis; - Stia (1951), oil on canvas, Rome Quadrennial;
- Veduta del Cervino, (1930), oil on canvas
- Still Life con zucche, (1950), oil on canvas
- A Luge on a snowy bridge,(1941), oil on canvas
- The Fucina, (1934), oil on canvas
- Trofeo della Regina, (1940), oil on canvas
- Funghi e Cardi, (1938), oil on canvas
Sources
- (it) This article is partially or wholly derived from a translation of the Wikipedia article in ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
entitled Italo Mus