Fernando MANETTI (1899-1964) - Lot 40

Fernando MANETTI (1899-1964) Anthropomorphic landscape, 1931 Oil on canvas signed lower right 125 x 100.5 cm Provenance: Philips - Philips sale June 26, 1995, no. 133 Fernando Manetti, an Italian painter specializing in frescoes and landscapes, moved to the Middle East in the late 1930s, first to Jerusalem and then to Beirut. His rigorous, post-impressionist style, strongly influenced by Cézanne, left its mark on the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA), where he became a key teacher. By passing on his technical know-how, he acted as a decisive mentor to a whole generation of pioneers of modern Lebanese art, including Paul Guiragossian and Yvette Achkar. In the 1930s, Fernando Manetti touched on Surrealist aesthetics. In our painting, Manetti hijacks the classical structure of Tuscan hills and nature to conceal or bring out human forms and organic faces. This approach is fully in line with the visual codes of Surrealism at the time - reminiscent of the optical illusions and double images dear to Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst - where the physical reality of the landscape merges with the dreamlike and projections of the unconscious.