Cesare Mussini

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Self-Portrait (1842)
Death of Atala (1835), Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna
The circumcision of Jesus in St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg (1849)

Cesare Mussini (born June 5, 1804 in Berlin , † May 24, 1879 in Florence ) was a German-Italian painter who mainly created portraits and pictures on religious subjects.

Life

Mussini was the son of the singer, violinist and composer Natale Mussini (1765-1837). In 1820 he moved to Florence with his younger brother Luigi Mussini (1813–1888) , where he began training at the art academy . In 1823 he won an award there for a watercolor painting and in 1824 for an oil sketch.

In 1828 Mussini moved to Rome, where he was friends with French intellectuals and artists, such as the ambassador François-René de Chateaubriand and Horace Vernet , the director of the French academy. When Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy arrived in Rome in 1830, he became friends with him. In Rome his style changed from classicism to romanticism .

In 1832 Mussini returned to Florence. He was a sought-after portrait artist with clients from all over the world. From October 1834 he began to teach at the Academy of Fine Arts. In the same year he was commissioned by Raphael Finzi Morelli to paint frescoes in his house in Piazza Santa Maria Novella. He later became a professor at the academy.

In 1839 he enriched the sculpture collection of the new museum in Berlin, of which Ignaz von Olfers was director general , by donating two painted stucco busts depicting Lorenzo il Magnifico and Niccolò Machiavelli . In 1840 he bought a painted clay bust of Piero Soderini for the museum for a small amount . When Gustav Friedrich Waagen was in Italy for further purchases, he also brokered around 25 other sculptures, mainly from the Quattrocento .

Around 1840 he developed a special process for the production of paints with natural resins, "without oil and without wax" and used it in the course of his career. Strength and durability are the main characteristics of the paints obtained, which won prizes at international exhibitions in London (1851, 1862) and Genoa (1854).

In 1844 he went to St. Petersburg , where he stayed for almost two years and painted for Emperor Nicholas I.

In 1875 he sold his resin oil paint formulation to the German company Schmincke , which still produces a product called Mussini today.

Cesare Mussini was married to Elise, the eldest daughter of Johann Ludwig Urban Blesson , with whom he had five children, Arturo (1841–1904), Costanza, Fanny, Olga and Francesca.

In 1896 Ernst Röver built an organ for the Schröderstift chapel in Hamburg , the central part of which is adorned with a painting by Cesare Mussini. The organ is now with paintings in the Valley Organ Center . Some of Mussini's works can also be seen in well-known museums, including the Uffizi Gallery of the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, the Galleria d´arte moderna di Palazzo Pitti and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome.

Paintings (selection)

  • Leonardo da Vinci dies in the arms of Francis I (1828)
  • Tasso reads poetry to Eleonora d'Este
  • Raphael and the Fornarina
  • Death of Atala
  • Stanislaw Poniatowski frees his Polish slave
  • Imelda de 'Lambertazzi with Bonifacio de'Geremei

literature

Web links

Commons : Cesare Mussini  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schmincke celebrates the 200th birthday of the Florentine painter Cesare Mussini , PDF file on schmincke.de
  2. ↑ books.google.de: Le arti belle in Toscana da mezzo il secolo XVIII ai di nostri: memoria storica , p, 74
  3. ↑ a b c d e treccani.it: Mussini, Cesare
  4. ↑ page 120 and 121 in On the History of the Royal Museums in Berlin: Festschrift to Celebrate their Fiftieth Anniversary , Berlin 1880 (digitized version)
  5. ↑ schmincke.de: Cesare Mussini
personal data
SURNAME Mussini, Cesare
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Italian painter
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1804
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH May 24, 1879
Place of death Florence