Portrait of an artist

Twenty years after his death, the prestigious "I Meridiani" library publishes an impressive anthology - edited by Andrea Cane, with an introductory essay by Giorgio Ficara - of texts by Mario Praz, aptly named "Bellezza e Bizzarria" (Mondadori, pgs.LXXVI - 1786, Euro 49.00).
A man of letters and art critic, worthy Anglicist, expert antiquarian, historian of taste, a misoneist at heart yet a forerunner of postmodern taste, Praz was the greatest Italian essayist of the last century: in addition to his legendary wide culture he was also a refined and careful observer attracted by the grotesque, the macabre, the absurd.
Browsing through the pages of this thorough exploration of his learning reveals the variety of scholarly interests together with an almost unique capacity for in-depth investigation: beginning with "La carne, la morte e il diavolo" (1930) in which he was the first to interpret the romantic feeling using the clarifying element of erotic pathology (and earning well-deserved international prestige, a favourable revue by Thomas S. Eliot  and the enthusiasm of the famous American critic Edmund Wilson) that was later to be followed by the fine essay-novel "La casa della vita", finalist in the 1959 edition of the "Premio Strega" together with the "Gattopardo" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. A very withdrawn character and well-aware of that inclination, he nevertheless accepted and even nurtured it, although with some uncertainty; perhaps Victor Hugo's aphorism "Melancholy is the joy of being sad" is befitting. He preferred living in secluded areas and neighbourhoods: such as in Via Giulia, in Rome, "tranquil like the elegant life of a provincial town, tranquil like a corridor between those rooms that were the courtyards of palaces". He loved surrounding himself with beautiful things, particularly those in the Empire style, his favourite since childhood: in these attenuated surroundings he spent his days, at times troubled by the thought that real joy was elsewhere. In places he had never seen, but for which - just like the ingenious Pessoa - he felt an incurable nostalgia.

Mario Praz
Bellezza e bizzarria
Mondadori
pgs.LXXVI
1786
Euro 49.00

Portrait of an artist

Twenty years after his death, the prestigious "I Meridiani" library publishes an impressive anthology - edited by Andrea Cane, with an introductory essay by Giorgio Ficara - of texts by Mario Praz, aptly named "Bellezza e Bizzarria" (Mondadori, pgs.LXXVI - 1786, Euro 49.00).
A man of letters and art critic, worthy Anglicist, expert antiquarian, historian of taste, a misoneist at heart yet a forerunner of postmodern taste, Praz was the greatest Italian essayist of the last century: in addition to his legendary wide culture he was also a refined and careful observer attracted by the grotesque, the macabre, the absurd.
Browsing through the pages of this thorough exploration of his learning reveals the variety of scholarly interests together with an almost unique capacity for in-depth investigation: beginning with "La carne, la morte e il diavolo" (1930) in which he was the first to interpret the romantic feeling using the clarifying element of erotic pathology (and earning well-deserved international prestige, a favourable revue by Thomas S. Eliot  and the enthusiasm of the famous American critic Edmund Wilson) that was later to be followed by the fine essay-novel "La casa della vita", finalist in the 1959 edition of the "Premio Strega" together with the "Gattopardo" by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. A very withdrawn character and well-aware of that inclination, he nevertheless accepted and even nurtured it, although with some uncertainty; perhaps Victor Hugo's aphorism "Melancholy is the joy of being sad" is befitting. He preferred living in secluded areas and neighbourhoods: such as in Via Giulia, in Rome, "tranquil like the elegant life of a provincial town, tranquil like a corridor between those rooms that were the courtyards of palaces". He loved surrounding himself with beautiful things, particularly those in the Empire style, his favourite since childhood: in these attenuated surroundings he spent his days, at times troubled by the thought that real joy was elsewhere. In places he had never seen, but for which - just like the ingenious Pessoa - he felt an incurable nostalgia.

Mario Praz
Bellezza e bizzarria
Mondadori
pgs.LXXVI
1786
Euro 49.00