Mussini, Luigi

Born in Germany, in the family of the Prussian court bandmaster Natale Mussini and his wife Juliana, singer, daughter of the composer Giuseppe Sarti . Parents returned to Italy ( Florence ) in 1818 . At the age of thirteen, Luigi began painting training under the guidance of his elder brother Cesare ^[2] , he also studied piano playing under the guidance of his parents, and from childhood the artist spoke fluent French, which his parents spoke at home. In 1830, he became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence , where his mentors were Pietro Benvenuti and Giuseppe Bezzuoli. The artist himself became interested in early Italian painting of the 15th century ^[3] . At this time, Mussini was attracted by the plots of Homer , Dante , Torquato Tasso , ancient and Renaissance history.

In 1840, he won a scholarship from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence for his painting “ Aeneas Escaping from Troy ” to work in Rome , spent four years in Rome at Villa Medici , where he met Jean-Auguste Dominic Ingres and made extensive acquaintances among Roman intellectuals. In Rome, Mussini became close to the circle of German romantic artists - Nazarenes . Under the influence of the Nazarenes, whose Manifesto he signed in 1842 , abandoned literary and historical topics, turned to painting of religious content. He spent several months at the end of 1844 in Naples .

In 1844, together with a student of Ingres, the Swiss painter Franz Adolf von Stürler ^[4] , he founded a drawing school in Florence on St. Apollonia Street, where the line was given great importance and the heritage of Italian artists of the pre-Raphael era was studied in detail ^[3] . This school, according to the creators, was to be based on the principles of the Renaissance painting workshop ^[5] . In 1848-1849 he took part in the struggle for the independence and unification of Italy, was a participant in the unsuccessful military operation to liberate Lombardy from the Austrians.

In 1849 , disappointed with the results of the revolution in Italy, he moved to Paris , where he resumed cooperation with Ingres. In 1851 he returned to Italy and was appointed to the post of director of the Institute of Fine Arts in Siena , which remained vacant for a long time. He held this position for thirty-seven years, until his death on June 18, 1888 ^[3] . In the later works of Luigi Mussini, created after returning from Paris, the influence of manner salon painting (in particular the influence of portraits of Frederic Leighton ) was manifested.

The artist had many students and followers known in Italy at that time (among them: Angelo Visconti, Amos Cassioli, Cesare Maccari, Pietro Aldi, Alessandro Franchi). The portrait image of Luigi Mussini in the medallion was performed by the sculptor Giovanni Duprè ( Italian: Giovanni Duprè ). The artist was the head of major restoration work. In 1880, he published Scritti d'arte ^[6] , reflections on painting and notes on meetings with prominent artists. After the artist’s death, his correspondence was published (from 1836 to 1888) ^[2] .

The artist was the chairman or member of various commissions and committees responsible for the distribution of awards for artistic achievements, for the selection of works for participation in international exhibitions, for the erection of new monuments (a competition for the installation of a monument to Victor Emmanuel II in Turin in 1879 ; a competition for the creation of a monumental hall dedicated to Victor Emanuel II, in the public palace of Siena in 1883-1888) ^[7] . In 1880, he was elected to the Siena City Council on the list of conservative constitutionalists.

The artist’s wife Luigia Mussini-Piaggio, also an artist and his student, died in 1865 ^[3] , their second daughter Louise in 1893 became the wife of her father’s former student Alessandro Franchi ( Italian: Alessandro Franchi ).

The hobby of the artist's whole life was chess. Mussini was a practicing chess player and composed chess tasks, which were published in chess publications of that time, starting in 1876 ^[1] . His favorite genre of chess composition was the reverse checkmate - White starts and forces Black to checkmate the White King in the indicated number of moves. The artist was a regular contributor to Nuova Rivista degli Scacchi . One of the artist’s most famous paintings is “Chess Tournament at the Court of the King of Spain” ^[8] , it was written by the artist on his own initiative around 1883 and exhibited at many national chess tournaments in which the artist himself participated, showing decent results.

Luigi Mussini was the founder and president of Società Scacchistica Senese in 1877 ^[9] .

In art, the artist considered his indisputable authorities Rafael , Italian "primitives" (especially artists of the Umbro-Tuscan school), Guido Reni ^[2] . Belonged to an academic school, but the influence of romanticism can be traced in his work.

• Ottino della Chiesa A. L'arte moderna dal neoclassicismo agli ultimi decenni. Milano, 1968; Mazzariol G., Pignatti T. Storia dell'arte italiana. Roma, 1958.