Antonietta Raphaël

Antonietta De Simon Raphaël was born in Kovno, Lithuania, in 1895 or 1900 and passed away in Rome in September 1975. “Mario Mafai, like all Romans, was lazy; in the morning, he would get up late, while I, coming from Lithuania, which is cold, would wake up early, at five, and go paint at the Colosseum, at the Arch of Septimius Severus, and on the Palatine Hill. Many times I found Scipione painting there as well, in the light of the early dawn. […] They were fascinated by my stories and my artistic experiences: I had been to Paris before coming to Rome, so I had seen what French painters were doing at that time […]”. The Iannaccone Collection holds numerous works, all paintings from the period 1928-1929, particularly a small panel depicting the Roman landscape from a privileged viewpoint—the top floor of an Umbertine-style building located at 325 Via Cavour, where Antonietta had moved in with Mario Mafai and their little daughter Miriam at the end of 1927. Her art is described as “eccentric and anarchic,” according to Roberto Longhi, who coined the famous expression “School of Via Cavour,” derived from the address of the artists' residence, identifying their works as the beginning of a new trend. From the spacious terrace, later destroyed by Mussolini's demolitions, one could see “a superior profile of the Colosseum and the outlines of the trees on the Palatine,” which Raphaël authentically and personally translated, not forgetting the visual experiences she had collected during her travels, from Eastern European traditions to the latest French painting. The buildings crowd the panel, distinguished from one another by a thick black outline. Nature and architecture almost intersect in the absence of perspective: the dark splotch of vegetation overlaps with the reds and burnt earth tones of the buildings, creating a tender embrace between the pictorialism of the landscape and the captivating history of the ruins. This same view had inspired Mafai a few months earlier in Landscape from the Terrace and View from the Balcony of Via Cavour. Among the gallery of landscapes and Roman vistas captured by Antonietta Raphaël during evening walks with Mario Mafai is an unreal representation of the Arch of Septimius Severus. The pilasters supporting the architrave appear two-dimensional, rendering the arch almost like a toy and stripping it of its imperial grandeur. Behind the monument lies an intense and enveloping Rome, with its horizon tinted a burning red. It is the Rome that Raphaël sees with her naive eyes as a foreigner, liberated from visual constraints and the weight of tradition and academies, as Corrado Pavolini noted when reviewing the 1929 collective exhibition at the Camerata degli Artisti in Piazza di Spagna: “Raphaël bears the terrible weight of such glorious reference with an innocent simplicity akin to that of a primitive,” painting “the Urbe as she sees it, with its temperament and her education.” Critic Alberto Francini echoed Pavolini's words, stating that “nothing could be more international than the painting of the delightful Miss Raphaël, who in this exhibition has captured every trump card.” The Iannaccone Collection also includes Still Life with Guitar, also from 1929, where the painting is brimming with “motifs”: the guitar, the drape, the playing cards, and the sheet music intersect like a tale from a Chassidic legend. It is a magical work that recalls ancient art while imbued with modern life, where Antonietta’s manic desire to highlight the details prevails. In 1931, she left her daughters with Mario in Rome and departed for a brief stay in the London of her childhood. It is here that she painted another splendid canvas: Yom Kippur in the Synagogue, which she described in a letter to her beloved. “Dear Mario… I am working on something very interesting; I have already written to you about my impression of the synagogue on Yom Kippur evening; I believe it will be a very beautiful piece, but it is terribly difficult. I wish you were here to advise me; it concerns the perspective of the interior and the heads—heads, heads, heads, heads—small and very small, but each must have its expression. The first heads were difficult for me, and I almost wanted to abandon the idea, but after a few days, it became clearer to me, and I began to see heads above and below, heads in profile, heads at three-quarter angles, each expressing a certain pain, a desire to pray and be forgiven. There is a very mystical figure in the distance; I believe it is the most beautiful of all. So far, I have included 22 heads and figures in the small canvas. I am sure, my Mario, that you think I am crazy. But I tell you, even if this turns out to be a failure, I will have learned a great deal.”