Appendix I: Mesdag Letters

Hiesinger, Ulrich W.

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Appendix I: Mesdag Letters

Ulrich W. Hiesinger

Antonio Mancini: Nineteenth-Century Italian Master

~The following letters, sent from Rome by the painter John J. Jacobson, vividly describe Mancini to patron Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife, Sina van Houten Mesdag. The letters, belonging to a private collection, were originally published in Hanna Pennock in Antonio Mancini en Nederland (see the Selected Bibliography). They have been translated here from...

Author

Ulrich W. Hiesinger

PublisherPhiladelphia Museum of Art

https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00247.002

Stable URL: https://aaeportal.com/?id=-21158

Appendix I: Mesdag Letters

The following letters, sent from Rome by the painter John J. Jacobson, vividly describe Mancini to patron Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife, Sina van Houten Mesdag. The letters, belonging to a private collection, were originally published in Hanna Pennock in Antonio Mancini en Nederland (see the Selected Bibliography). They have been translated here from the original Dutch letters by Lloyd DeWitt.

LETTER FROM JOHN J. JACOBSON TO HENDRIK WILLEM MESDAG

Rome, 4 January 1893

Dear Mr. Mesdag,

Your friendly letter of December 14 remains unanswered by me, because time and again I put off writing because of various impediments. I can, however, tell you even more about Mancini—I will try to update you regularly, whether I manage to control what I tell you remains to be seen, because I already know for certain that when I start telling you one thing, some other weird thing about him will occur to me again. The thousand francs you forwarded are with Mr. M. in trust, and I discussed with his Excellency what was best to do with Mr. Mancini. Mancini is . . . nuts, but he’s a nice nut, an unselfish nut, but it’s a fact that he’s got a fly buzzing around in his skull. For that matter, he knows it, and sometimes says so. He has already spent some time in an institution. When exactly that was, I don’t know, but not that long ago. Since we’re together all the time from seven-thirty in the morning until evening, I’m very aware of how he lives.

You say in your letter that the man needs to have canvas and colors so he can paint. But there is something else he needs even more than that, namely, to take care of his health, otherwise he won’t be able to work. I think I arrived just in time to keep him on his feet a bit. After discussing this with Mr. M., the first thing I did was get him into the bath. Our basic standard of hygiene dictated the necessity of this. Only it wasn’t going to help much if Mr. M. crawled back into his old garb. He kept complaining about the cold—but the bath, during which his teeth constantly clattered, gave me a chance to see that his clothing consisted of a flannel shirt without buttons, four pairs of pants pulled one over another, none of them equipped with a closure besides the outermost one, which was kept from falling off of him by a string. His feet were in, or better said, sticking out of socks, socks that he certainly never took off anymore because the difficulty of putting them on would be made overwhelming because of the great selection of openings to choose from—the shoes, they still stand in a corner of my room—must be handled with care because especially the soles were well ventilated—with the result that the poor man constantly had wet feet. His upper body was clothed by six, yes six, vests that he had on, like a circus clown, one on top of the other. The opening of the vest was closed by a rag, frequently missing, leaving his chest bare. A thin gray cut-away jacket completed his wardrobe. In addition, a long dark peculiarly greasy overcoat and a gray hat. This all was Mancini before the bath. But after the bath! You couldn’t recognize him. I took him to a barber where he was trimmed and shaved; he was given a big bar of soap for his tub and then [put] his new clothes on. If we had let him go, then he would’ve bought a suit for 25 francs (normally he buys from his doorman)! I think I may have already told you this. We took Mr. M. to a large, cheap but dependable department store where we bought him a pair of boots, socks—flannel shirt, etc., etc. In addition a dark gray sturdy suit—a coat—a hat, in short the basic necessities. I also found him a new place. The room he had was 15 francs per month. Not much, don’t you find? But without asking him they put someone else in his room with him, that person had one eye, he napped all day and read all night. For that matter that seems to be one of Mr. M. ‘s favorite activities. He reads and writes at night. He writes on anything he can find and at all hours of the day—I found whole stacks of paper in his studio. He keeps reading this Bible, of which you find little pieces in all his pockets. He also wrote to you and with this copied out parts of the Bible for you. But to get back to the room, when I unexpectedly came with him to the room we found his landlady’s child in his bed—that seemed to be a habit. His new room also costs 15 francs, but at least it’s private, and with good people. I wanted to help him with his moving, but this offer seems to have been completely superfluous, because there wasn’t anything to move. He has not a hairbrush—comb—nothing, nothing, nothing. Because his new place is near mine, I can help him get going every day, at first getting dressed was difficult and the first time I really had to treat him like a child, buttoning up, putting on collar, tie, etc., for which he stroked me under the chin!—and said over and over “merci boucoup—boucoup—boucoup!” (His French is peculiar.) Up till now I still have to take his boots off in the evening, but tomorrow morning we’re going out to get a bootjack. He’s particularly generous with the little or no money that he does get; if I buy him two boxes of matches, within half an hour he’s given one away. He gets 4 or 5 sous a day, to get breakfast and . . . yes, I don’t know for what, I think he gives it away to poor people. Tomorrow I will go further with this, since I got an infection in my eyes; they’ve begun bothering me again, and I naturally have to be very careful.

It’s already Wednesday, January 11, and only now have I had the chance to proceed with my letter. It’s dark today and raining again so that we have a day off. About Mancini as a person I told you a few things that show how strange he is, but his method of working is unusual, too. You have early Mancinis as well as the most recent examples of his art and can see the huge difference in how he works. These days, or better yet, in the last years he’s still been working with his system of squares*—he spans his frame with slanting lines with paper glued to them, pins pieces with paint on them to the canvas and to the frame—”pour voirles tons-les . . . valeurs.” That means everything to him. I’ve only heard him use the word “color” a couple of times. Mrs. Mesdag’s words, that Mancini is a great “tonist,” form a powerfully correct critique. He searches for nothing other than tone. And this he searches for with all his soul, bringing the colors, halting and jerking to the canvas and whenever he approaches his canvas to . . . how do I say it, to push and twist, to carefully apply paint behind the grid, gently laying it down, then he heaves and sighs as if the tones to which he had given birth were then torn from him. He always works at a distance from his canvas, always returning to sit at precisely the same little spot that he carefully marked on the floor. He works with the greatest precision, although every time you look at him he’s different, at one moment he is grieved to his soul, then he is singing happily—then livid and wild—every square of tone that you get out of him, every little square that he paints is another little piece of his sanity lost—it won’t be long before he runs out. I hope that I’m mistaken in this, but… the great genius that leads to madness tosses and turns in his head incessantly. He is surprisingly arduous about his work—always keeps on working—kneading, persisting to get it completed. You should see him sometimes when he leaves his studio, frozen solid, stupefied, he walks staring, suddenly yelling—sighing—peering aloft—with damp eyes, as if he was addressing his Virgin (this less out of religiosity than to call on a deity of his art).

He’s always cold—this has yet another cause. His painting that shows a child lying down in green—balls of light—fruit, etc., he set up on his stove, completely forgetting that then he couldn’t stoke it up. Instead of a stove, up to now he used a foot-warmer with glowing charcoal—but during the still-life this also got moved and is now supporting a plaster putto that he gilded, after a manner—wrapped in tissue paper and set a little tinfoil crown on it and added it to a painting as a little holy image. He does not first look for a composition—he doesn’t draw anything ahead of time—he looks for tone, tone! “Les carieaux ne valent rien—si il n’y a pas une bonne organization de peintre—c’est pour mettre le modèle dans le mouvement pour l’ensemble—si on n’a pas la vie—c’est bête pourtant—ce n’est pas l’art, autrement tout le monde pourrait faire l’art avec la perspective—l’anatomie.”1[The squares aren’t worth anything if it’s not a good organization to the painting—it’s to set the model into movement in the whole—if there’s no life—its foolish nevertheless, it’s not art, otherwise anyone could make art using perspective—anatomy.] This is one of his many admonitions. I wrote this last bit as he repeated it, he is here right now, sitting and writing, always writing, he fills everything with writing—books, newspapers, and documents. I’ll get back to this later [as] we have to go out to ship a painting.

Do you want to make him very happy? Send him a portrait of you and Mrs. Mesdag, he would love to have this. He will then want to know very much what you think of the work that he sent to you. He rarely sees his works framed—he would love to know if it looks good in gold.

Perhaps you will write to him, then I shall translate it and read it out loud to him.

With courteous greetings to your wife.

With esteem, your servant,
John J. Jacobson
Poste restante, Rome

[A note was added by Mancini]
Illustre Sig. Mesdag
O’ pregato il Sig. Jacobson di felicitare da mia parte gli auguri annuali alla Sua e famiglia. Lavoro purche possa riuscire degno di Lei.
Su devoto Ant Mancini

[Jacobson translated Mancini’s note]
He says as much as this:
To the esteemed Mr. Mesdag,
I asked Mr J. to send along to you and yours my New Year’s greetings. I work so that I can he able to he worthy of your attention, etc., etc.
Antonio Mancini

*He just told me that he's been working for ten years already with squares.

LETTER FROM JOHN J. JACOBSON TO SINA VAN HOUTEN MESDAG

Rome, 14 April 1893

Dear Mrs. Mesdag,

Your letter of, well, I hardly dare to say it, January 15, remains unanswered. Many times I said to myself—“write today,” but nothing came of it because of a lack of time or a convergence of circumstances. Today I have a free hour and I’m glad to make use of it to thank you for your friendly letter and to update you about Mr. Mancini. If I suggested in my first letter that I really knew him, then I erred in some things and I’m bound to contradict some of the things in my first letter, this is more likely to happen when you’re describing someone who is contradiction embodied, through and through. When I wrote last he was working in the studio where Mr. van Houten called on him. Since then he worked for a while in another place that I rented for myself, but where it was impossible to stay together with him any longer. In the beginning he seemed to be keeping himself in check, but after living with him a few weeks he let himself go and I was experiencing daily the most tragic dramas of a great ruined artist.

If I wrote to you that he calls on his Madonna, which I interpreted to be him calling on the god of his art—then I was mistaken. It’s just profanity, the equivalent in Italian of what a Dutch person would mean by “I’m damned.” In one instance he explains that he cares nothing about “the Eternal Father,” Christ, etc., etc., and at the next moment he’s completely absorbed in the gospels of Luke and John, two books that, especially lately, accompany him everywhere, and with which I encounter him in bed, in the trolley, and while the model is resting. I doubt he understands anything he reads—he frequently reads aloud—in a melodious monotone. Another of his many peculiarities is his enduring passion for writing down everything that happens to him—because of this longstanding habit he has filled stacks of notebooks and booklets. There are hundreds of pages filled about Mr. Mesdag and to Mr. Mesdag; confused, illegible, sometimes he suddenly stands there, taking an old letter or a piece of paper out of his pocket and writing some impression or other down, and later he does the same with the name of a shopkeeper where he buys almonds or a cigar—I’ve asked him what all this writing is for, he answered once that all these writings would be destined for the library of an artist’s association in Naples, another time he said he was writing a novel for himself so that later, when he was locked in an asylum, he could page through it—deeply pathetic. I will try to tell you more about him when something about his words and deeds strikes me.

So, for instance, one evening there was a ball in our Circolo on the occasion of Carnival. First M. didn’t want to go at all—”qu’est ce que cą me fait?” But I succeeded in convincing him to have a glimpse because I thought it would be good for him to occasionally have a change of scenery. He was going to come by to get me at 10 in the evening so I could put a white tie on him. He came before 10 but did nothing but turn, laugh and guffaw, “j’ ai quatre gilets blancs”—once he was calm I heard that he got from Marquis so-and-so four white vests “comme on les porte à la cour,” additionally an old jacket and a pair of boots, and for this festive occasion had put on all four vests, one on top of the other, so in case one got dirty he could immediately have number two ready to wear on the outside. Upon further investigation it appeared that he actually only had on one white vest, one tight vest with two rows of buttons, and on top of that a black jacket that even then he wore not over his pants like people normally do, but tucked into his pants, which made him look comical. After we fixed him up as much as possible, we went to the ball together, but the minute we reached the cloakroom and saw all the other guests, he fled in fright—with someone’s help I got him as far as sitting in a corner where he could watch without being seen, but I had to literally promise to come to take him away, which I did, but then he naturally didn’t want to come along. Later we snuck through a back door—”quels imbeciles, je suis mieux que tous! qu’ils sont bêtes, etc. etc.” he murmured along the way. Out of anyone else’s mouth it would sound boundlessly arrogant. But [for] Mancini—[it’s] thoroughly modest, one might say.

I think I wrote you that he comes to the Circolo to work from the model, both nude and clothed. Where else he squanders his evening time I don’t know because he doesn’t have a home—there’s no place where he can relax or find entertainment or company. Now he has a small room with a view of rooftops and he lays down there in the afternoon with part of the Bible—not long ago I found him there with a portrait of his mother. He doesn’t read, but mostly sleeps, still the Bible comes with him. He has no concept of time, and I would have bought him a watch long ago since I already knew he would use it all twenty-four hours of the day, but it would have been left behind here or there, or broken, or taken away by one of his many lovely family members who leave him to his fate and only barely show interest in him when they think there’s something they can get from him. At the moment there’s a show in Naples where a portrait by him is exhibited. There was a chance of him winning a prize. As soon as the father (living in Naples), got wind of that, he came here and when M. came back from the Circolo in the evening, he found his father waiting for him. The small room and equally tiny bed had to be shared. That M. naturally couldn’t sleep very well, even though he badly needed to, didn’t faze his father. The next morning I met M. without his overcoat, which he claimed to have forgotten, but later I met the father wearing this article of clothing, naturally I immediately ordered him to take it off and not take it away again. The plan appeared to be to spend the time waiting for the decision concerning Mancini fils here in Rome, waiting for the affair that was unfolding in Naples. But because I paid no allowance to anyone other than M., the father found it advisable not to remain there long and I made certain that he knew, should any prize money to go M., he would get none of it but it would be placed in the safekeeping of the Marquis del Grillo. The 500 francs that M. did receive were, I think, indeed deposited with del Grillo. The father asked for money for the return fare, and only because M. insisted on giving this to him, did I gave him a ticket along with a few francs, otherwise he wouldn’t have left. You see, I don’t really trust the Italians very much but with reason—a little while ago a nephew visited Mancini and the new boots were gone, disappeared with the nephew who set sail from Genoa—a fine family, and I could keep going about the specimens in this unlucky man’s entourage.

In a few weeks I’m leaving here, [and] it seems M. will revert completely to his old ways. I found out the source of the bad smell in his studio—for the call of nature, instead of retiring, he uses his stone floor for everything. He takes no care of himself; normally if he has 4 sous, he spends two on a shoeshine and then the other two on a cigar, and thus he ends up with an empty stomach, so while that morning he had money for breakfast, he wasted it on paper, chestnuts, and other junk.

When I had just arrived, he wanted to paint my portrait, life-size, a sketch—quick—quick, just a week, if I only gave him canvas and paint. So I posed, standing behind a big frame full of squares (strings), his standard working method. After a few afternoons he gave up because it was too cold in the room where he was working. A month ago he wanted to take it up again and after many countless layers of paint with a tempera knife, he sometimes hopes that he’ll succeed, and sometimes it’s sad to see how he feels when he can’t find any way through his own method. Lately its going better, “ce sera un beau souvenir—he says—mais il me faut le travailler comme une sculpteur—pas avoir peur—mettre beaucoup de couleur—ce n’est pas une aquarelle.”2[This will be a good souvenir, he says, but I have to work like a sculptor, without fear, apply lots of color, this isn’t a watercolor.] Yesterday he left me waiting an hour and a quarter whereupon I naturally informed him that this was not especially very nice. The answer was—delivered melodiously in an utterly self-assured tone—”c’est tout fait expres—c’est tout fait expres—ce n’est pas moi qui le fait—c’est un autre dans moi”3[It’s all done deliberately, it’s all on purpose; it wasn’t me who did it, but another within me.] . . . and then he wrote it down right away.

Have I written to you yet about his childhood? I know that he was born in Rome, and after that lived in Naples for twenty years—his father is a little tailor, I mean to find out if he has a brother or sister in the insane asylum or if they’ve died there. He worked in the academy in Naples and sometimes posed there himself to earn money and thus to buy paint. In the breaks he drew portraits of his classmates there and made a few soldi.

I will try to find out more about him and hope that later I will able to tell you more about him in a more organized way. Like I already said, I’ll leave in about two weeks. First to Naples and then Capri and then via Venice to home—I did my best to try to learn something and drew in the evenings faithfully. My paintings, with a few exceptions, I scraped down because I could get paint but no tone. I long for our beautiful Holland, I don’t understand this shrill Italy, the eternally blue cardboard lid is so harsh and monotonous, the Netherlands is so much finer.

It will be a few weeks before I get there. If you want me to pass something along to Mancini, I ask you not to wait too long with it. Maybe you could send the promised portrait that he always expects. My courteous greetings to Mr. Mesdag please.

Best regards,
John J. Jacobson

1 [The squares aren’t worth anything if it’s not a good organization to the painting—it’s to set the model into movement in the whole—if there’s no life—its foolish nevertheless, it’s not art, otherwise anyone could make art using perspective—anatomy.] »

2 [This will be a good souvenir, he says, but I have to work like a sculptor, without fear, apply lots of color, this isn’t a watercolor.] »

3 [It’s all done deliberately, it’s all on purpose; it wasn’t me who did it, but another within me.] »

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