Art and Dance: Two Passions of Lucio Mantese

As a child, Lucio Mantese had 2 passions - art and dance. Born in a humble family, where his father ran a Meat-shop in Schio, he went started working when he was fifteen. Yet, with his grit and determination, he has been able to create a life for himself, both as a successful artist and a dancer.

I am always trying to write about the creative persons, especially artists living in Schio and Alto-Vicentino, and it was a long time that I wanted to write about Lucio. He has an art gallery in the city and 2-3 years ago, I had told him that I wanted to interview him.

Recently (October 2025), there was an exhibition of five artists in the historical Toaldi Capra palazzo in Schio's city centre. Lucio was one of them. This gave me finally an opportunity to talk to him. This post tells his story in his own words. Click on the pictures for a bigger view.

Sunil: Lucio, you don't live in Schio any more, instead you live in Cogollo del Cengio. What happened, how did this decision of moving out came about?

Lucio: As a boy, I always wanted a home surrounded by greenery. I heard about this land in mountain in Cogollo del Cengio, which was surrounded by the forest and there I found the terrain to realise my dream. At that time, I didn't have enough money to buy it, so I had to take a bank loan, which I paid slowly. It is my dream home.

Sunil: Tell me about your interest for art.

Lucio: Already in the primary school, my teachers used to bring me the pictures of their children, asking me to make their portraits. This helped me to avoid mathematics, which I used to find very difficult. It was a God-given gift. When people ask me where did I learn painting, I tell them ask Pavarotti where did he learn to sing like that. It is a talent, a gift which I had.

Sunil: You didn't study art?

Lucio: I followed the great artists. For example, I learned from important painters who would make still life or landscapes. I could visit their art-studios, see them at work and learn from them. The person who first taught me art was Cesare Valle, though I am mostly self-taught. I did study for a couple of years at the Academia in Venice.

Another thing which helped me to learn art was an art-gallery owner who used to bring me renaissance period art for making their copies. I did this work for about 15 years and that was a big learning period for me, because to have the art-works of renaissance artists, to study them, to see how they had created and to recreate that. I was about 30 years old at that time when I started doing these copies of the famous art works.

Sunil: But the famous artists are so diverse, each with his own way of designing and using colours, how did you learn how to copy such different styles?

Lucio: I can copy only renaissance period art. This style requires that I first make a background like with water-colours, so that the art work does not start on a white canvas, but on another background such as grey. Then I let it dry. I work in layers and after each layer, I have to let it dry. This way of covering with layers of veils is important for renaissance period art.

For example, the blue cloaks that are part of the renaissance paintings by famous artists - I first paint it in black and white, and then with transparent veils of ultramarine or another shade of blue, I would cover it. The parts underneath which are dark remain dark and the parts which were white, they show the colours, but this gives a light to the colours.

Sunil: These specific techniques, how did you learn them?

Lucio: Now there are YouTube channels where you can learn everything, but I had the books of the famous artists in which they explained their way of working.

Sunil: Do you try to recreate such works with old pigments which were used in that period?

Lucio: No, I use the normal colours available in the market. Raffaello used beautiful pigments which continue to be beautiful even 500 years later. The modern colours, they started to be used by artists like Van Gogh, but his famous blues are becoming black. So we don't know what will happen to them.

Sunil: Among the renaissance period artists that you have duplicated, who do you like most?

Lucio: I love the works of Caravaggio. At the time he was painting, he was criticised because his figures looked real, they did not respect the artistic canons of that period. For example, look at the Madonna in this work, she looks like a poor pilgrim woman (points to a copy of a Caravaggio painting he has made). This is similar to our modern sensibility while many other renaissance figures in the paintings they are idealised, they look like the pictures of the saints.

Sunil: Tell me about this self-portrait, with the mountains and the river behind you.

Lucio: This is a recent work, I have painted myself sitting in my garden. It shows our mountains - Colletto di Velo, Summano and Pasubio. The one you call 'river', in reality there is a road passing there, I replaced it with a mountain path. I keep on making self-portraits and when I don't like it any more, I make a new one. I like this one because I think that it shows intensity.

Sunil: Apart from making copies, what other kind of paintings you like to make?

Lucio: I like the local landscapes of Veneto, I like to show them as dream-like landscapes. However, 90% of my work is making portraits commissioned by the people. They bring me the photographs. For example, a man brought me the picture of his wife when she was young and they had gone to some tropical country for their honeymoon. So when I made her portrait, I added more beauty to her and added a tropical background to it. He cried when he saw it, said that I had given him a wonderful memory of his wife.

Sunil: It is beautiful. How much time you need to make something like this?

Lucio: I am quick. Drying needs time, if it is a sunny day or I use a heater, it reduces that time. If we don't count that I can do it in a week.

Sunil: Do you paint everyday?

Lucio: From 9 in the morning, as long as there is sunlight, I am very disciplined. When I am working for too long, then I take a break by going to work in my garden. I look after the garden of our home.

Sunil: Apart from art, you are also passionate about dance, tell me about it.

Lucio: When I was twenty, there was a couple with whom I was very friendly, they loved dancing. Going out with them, I also started dancing, and I joined a dancing school. After the first lesson, I decided that I loved it and I wanted to do it for living. I saw the light, I said that I want to teach dancing. I studied dance in Padua, from one of the greats of dancing, a world champion and to learn from him I used to go to him from midnight till one in the night. Then became a professional and later opened my own dancing school.

I stopped the meat shop of my family that we had, even if my father was very upset about it, because that was the family activity - my father, brothers, grandfather had all worked there. Ten years later, he told me that he was wrong and that I had taken the right decision.

Sunil: Do you still have that dance school?

Lucio: Even though now I am old, but my dance school continues to work that to my son Daniele, who is twenty-six years old. He is national level dancer in Italy for standard dance and Latin dances. I took him to learn dance when he was six. Initially he was not very keen but I told him, when you grow up then you can decide if you want to continue it or not. When he became 18, he said that he wanted to continue it, he was already considered an A-level dancer. Eighteen is too late to start learning dancing, you need to start earlier. Thanks to him and his partner, our dancing school has found a new vitality.

Sunil: Thanks Lucio for giving me your time.  

You can check and contact him through Lucio's Facebook and Instagram pages, there you can also see pictures of his dance school and his son Daniele.

*** 

An Artist and His Grand-Daughter

Recently, we had an unusual art exhibition in Schio (click on the pictures for a bigger view).

It presented the works of a hidden artist, someone who had a passion for art, even while he worked in a wool factory and as a house-painter, white-washing the homes. And it was organised by his grand-daughter Alice who had promised her grandfather Romano Benazzi that one day she will organise an art exhibition for him.

The exhibition was called, Nonno Raccontami Un Quadro (Grandpa, tell me a picture).

Romano Benazzi's Life-Story

Romano was born in a village near Ferrara (Italy) in 1941. During the second World War, his father died while fighting in Ukraine. Raised by a single mother, he started working in the fields at a young age. When he was sixteeen, under a Government programme, he came to spend some days with a family in Pieve Belvicino, a few kilometres north of Schio in north-east part of Italy.

A couple of years later, he came back to Pieve in the same programme, but this time a guest of another set of families. Both these experiences created in him strong links of family and friendship, and he fell in love with the beauty of this mountainous area.

He found work with a local firm engaged in painting houses. It was also the period when he started sketching with pencil and charcoal. He fell in love with a local girl, and thus found his wife Gina, who worked in a bar in Pieve. He also took on a second work, at the Lanerossi wool mills of Pieve, while they came to live in Magre area of Schio. They had two children, Guido and Daniela.

Over the years he continued with his passion for art, experimenting with different art mediums including oil paints. After his retirement, he devoted himself completely to his art, in spite of developing Parkinson disease (a disease which causes tremors in hands and difficulties in movements).

Romano lives in a house of elderly persons and even if Parkinson disease limits his manual capabilities, in fact sometimes he doesn't like the results of his efforts, but he still continues to be an artist. The image below has one of his recent sketches with charcoal, where frustrated by his lack of control over his hand movements and unhappy with the result, he covered it with charcoal.

Conclusions

In these pictures you can see some of his works. I was deeply touched by the idea of his grand-daughter Alice, daughter of his son Guido, to honour her grand-father's works and to organise this exhibition in collaboration with the Municipality of Schio.

Though Romano Benazzi remains an unknown painter, his works remain confined to the homes of his family and friends, it is important that they were celebrated by his family and community.

 

*** 

Sareo 2025 Street Art Festival

Schio's annual street art festival "Sareo" was held in the last week of June 2025. During this festival, the artists living in and around Schio are invited to put up their recent works for display in Via Pasubio in the city centre.

The old name of Via Pasubio was Via Sareo, which explains the name of this festival, which goes back to almost fifty years - it was suspended during the Covid years. The image below shows a view of the street with the art works. (You can click on any of the images below for a bigger view)

I want to share some of the art-works from this year's festival, that I liked. Our response to creative works including art, poetry, books, is very subjective. Thus, I am sure that some of the works that I liked, may not seem special to you and you would have chosen completely different works.

I am very fond of water-colour landscapes but this year, I didn't find any such landscape which I found outstanding. However, I also like abstract compositions and there were a few this year, which I liked.

These artists-artworks are not in any particular order.

Winner of Sareo 2024 - Giannino Scorzato: A jury of artists chooses the best artist, winner of Sareo festivals. Last year's winner was Giannino Scorzato from Valdagno. This year,  a solo exhibition of his works was held at the Toaldi-Capra palazzo as a part of Sareo festival.

A self-taught artist, Scorzato is also a mountaineer. He had started with oil paintings, but now he expresses himself mainly in beautiful and amazingly detailed pencil sketches. You can see one of his works from this exhibition in the image below, a portrait of a young girl.

I thought that this landscape by Teresa Vallese captured very well the special light, the landscape and the sea of Mykonos island, with its white houses, with its predominent blue and white colours in a simple way.

I liked the next painting because of its palette of pale colours, the diaphanous-delicate look and the way the flowers and abstract designs foreground the female figure. It is by Antonia Bortoloso from Schio, who is known for her feminine portraits and figures. There were two of her works in this edition of Sareo and I liked both of them. 

The next work has Australian aboriginal masks in pointillism style by Raffaella Rigadello - it reminded me of Andy Warhol's pop-art posters because of their colours and graphics. A handwritten note fixed near the artwork, probably written by the artist, pointed about the subjugation of Aboriginal people in Australia by the European settlers.

Mari Baldisserotto's water-colour of a beautiful girl with blue eyes made me think of the photograph of the Afghan girl by Steve McCurry which was used as cover-pic for National Geographic in 1985. I liked its colour composition and the girl's expression.

I like the way Giuseppe (Beppe) Fochesato uses shafts of light in his interiors. He had a few works in the festival and the one I have chosen has an old portico, probably from an old church with a door at the end. I love its colours and atmosphere.

The next is a water-colour by Egidio Carotta and it has a flower-pot fixed to the wall next to a gate. The painting gets its charm from the contrast in the colours of the bricks of the house, where red bricks are used to create a visual impact and give a shape to the painting.

I also liked the delicate flowers in the water-colour painting by Emanuela Minà from Schio. It had beautiful colours and composition. She also had another water-colour painting in the exhibition, but I liked this one more. 

The painting of a black galleon ship against an abstract background dominated by green colour, made me think of the film Pirates of the Caribbean and captain Jack Sparrow. I liked its dream like abstract effect. It is by Fabiola Carmelini.

Let me conclude by 3 works which I liked most in this year's Sareo. The first is an abstract composition by Luigi Bernardi. I would have preferred its lower part to be less definite and with paler colours, but still I found it intriguing.

The second is titled "Boy with a neckless" and is by Lorenzo Zanello. I liked its colours and the guy's expression. Every time I looked at it, it made me smile. It also reminds me of a guy I knew.

My favourite piece of art this year was this abstract work by Claudio dal Prà from Chiuppano. I am not able to explain why I liked it but I loved its complex colours, hidden figures and its composition. I like art which pulls me in and I can spend a long time trying to understand why I like it.

Conclusions

I think that it is very difficult for an artist to create a completely distinctive style, so that as soon as you see it you can say that it is by that artist. This also means that when you see works that use that style, you can say that this artist is inspired by that one.

However, developing a distinct style can also become a prison - then people expect you to keep on repeating that style forever. In that sense, creating a style of abstract art is much better because it can give you more freedom as an artist.

Regarding the artists whose works I have presented in this post, I was surprised that only a few of them have a social media presence. I feel that many of them, especially those who have not sacrificed years of life in the pursuit of art and have done other works while keeping art as a passion for the weekends or retirement, feel shy of calling themselves as artists and talking about their art.

***** 

János Géczi - Artist in Schio

János Géczi, the well-known Hungarian writer, poet and artist was in Schio in the beginning of March 2025. Some of his works created during his stay in the city are expected to be a part of Schio's DiCarta Paper-Art Biennale planned for 2026-27.

During his stay in Schio, János was accompanied by his friend and garden-architect, Zsolt Ambrus, who also acted as his translator.

I had an opportunity to meet János on 12th March, and to talk to him about his work. This post is based on that meeting.

Artists in Schio

Though Schio (VI) is a tiny town in the Alpine foothills in the north-east of Italy, it has a vibrant cultural and artistic life. The city has a rich calendar of artistic events including the DiCarta Papermade Biennale organised by the Commune of Schio. These events often bring to the city important artists and opportunities for interacting with them.

The next Papermade Biennale in Schio is being planned for 2026-27 and will be curated by Valeria Bertesina and Roberto Nassi.

János Géczi and His Creative Evolution

János was born on 5 May 1954 in a small town called Monostorpályi in Northern part of Hungary. His family members were mostly peasants and manual workers. He went to a local primary school, which had big classes with around 45 children.

He started writing poetry in the middle school. There, he had a good teacher who thought that he had potential and encouraged him to go to the grammar school for secondary education.

He was able to win a scholarship for the grammar school in Debrecen, where he studied biology. He understood very early that life-sciences and literature (prose and poetry), are two different ways to look at and understand the world and its reality. Thus, all his life he has followed both, the scientific and the literary-artistic paths. While in the school, he also started to explore the writings of important Hungarian writers like Péter Melius Juhász, Mihály Csokonai Vitéz, Fazekas and Diószegi.

After the grammar school, most of his classmates went on to study medicine while Janos went for 5 years to a biology institute, known for its research work. Today, apart from being a university professor and researcher, he is a well-known writer, poet, editor and artist.

During his university years, he became interested in sociological issues around the marginalisation of different groups of people and started to write about it. This was during 1970s when Hungary was under a communist rule - his writings were not appreciated by the authorities and he was told to stop.

For all his life, János has continued to observe and understand the world through those two different lenses, creativity and science, expressing himself through essays, poems and visual poems, fiction, décollage and has won different awards.

You can read English translations of two of his poems (link opens in a new window).

János & His Reflection Diary in 2025

János explained that for whole of 2025 he is participating in a writing exercise in collaboration with a Hungarian newspaper. Every month, a creative person (a poet or a writer or an artist) poses a question to him and every day of that month, he writes a kind of daily diary, reflecting on that question. His diary is published in the newspaper and its website, and after completing a year, it will come out as a book.

I thought that it was an incredible prompt for stimulating creative juices, but it also requires a very strong discipline. Even while his stay in Schio, he continues to write his reflections every day. 

János Géczi as an Artist in Schio

As an artist, János is known for his Décollage work. "Dècollage" is created by tearing-off or removing a piece or a part of a paper or canvas. In that sense, it is opposite of a "Collage", in which we bring together different pieces to create an art.

He works with old public-posters in cities. Those posters are usually pasted one on the top of another, till they become too many and then someone tears all of them off, cleans the space and puts up new posters.

János goes around to collect different layers of posters and then removes parts of each layer so that bits and pieces of the underneath layers can be seen. This mimics what happens in real-life as sometimes posters can tear off and show older posters below, creating shapes, juxtapositions of words, pictures, colours and shapes, as a kind of memento-mori about passage of time and the role of memories.

During his stay in Schio, János has collected many old posters from the public spaces in the city. He said that he liked the pale pinks and and blues that he finds at the back of these posters and his décollage works created in Schio, focus mainly on the different layers seen from the back of the posters.

The room where he was working, had rolled sheets of old posters he had collected from the city, some of them wet because it had been raining in Schio. It also had big containers of glue, which he used to create additional layers of the posters. Once the layers are placed, then he can tear-off some of them, creating the shapes and colours of his artistic geographies.

Compared to some of his works which showed the more vibrant colours and words from the front of the posters, I personally loved his more abstract creations made from the back of the posters, with their pale colours.

Roberto Nassi has asked Janos to also write a poem linked with his artwork for the Biennale, so that both his artistic and literary dimensions are presented together.

In the End

For me, meeting János and Zsolt was also an opportunity to reconnect with Valeria Bertesina, who has been curating the DiCarta Paper-Art Biennials in Schio.

János is of my age and I was trying to imagine his years of growing up in Hungary when it was a part of Soviet influence and to compare them with my growing up in India.

In a way, I find a reflection of my life in his, as like him, I also have my professional doctor-researcher life and a creative life. I was sorry that I could not speak and understand Hungarian, because it would have been much more interesting and enriching to talk and exchange notes about our similarities and differences.

Staying in a small town like Schio, and meeting and talking to interesting creative persons like János, is a wonderful combination, and I feel very lucky to have such opportunities.

*****

Renaissance Art & Giovanni Bellini

The renaissance period introduced the ideas of three-dimensional depth, realism, perspective, colour-tones and light in paintings, based on new understandings from different sciences such as anatomy, physics, mathematics, geology and natural sciences occurring in that period.

This post focuses on the evolution of a renaissance period artist through 11 paintings on the theme of "Madonna and child Jesus". The artist is Giovanni Bellini and all the paintings are from the Accademia museum in Venice.

The image below is that of a telero (huge painting covering an entire wall) started by Giovanni Bellini in 1515-16, left incomplete due to his death. (Click on the images for a bigger view)

The Bellini Bottega in Venice

In that period, the artists worked in Bottega or workshops, where the master artist had many apprentice and helpers. Jacopo Bellini, Giovanni's father, was a renowned Venetian artist in Venice. One of Jacopo's famous works is a tall mosaic inside St Marks basilica in Venice, known as "Mosaic of Visitation".

Giovanni Bellini, also called Giambellino, was born around 1930-35. He is considered as one of the great masters of early Venetian renaissance art. Giovanni had learned the art from his brother and father, was also influenced by his brother-in-law Andrea Mantegna, as well as other artists. Giovanni played an important role in developing the ideas of "tonality" in art, ensuring an overall tone for the painting and a smooth passage of tones in different parts of the painting.

Before presenting his art-works, let me briefly introduce the Accademia museum of Venice, where you can admire the originals of all the paintings presented in this post.

Accademia Museum

This museum hosts some of the masterpieces of renaissance period art by maestros like Tiziano (Titan), Tintoretto, Canaletto, Tiepolo, Hans Memling & Hieronymus Bosch. It is situated close to the Accademia bridge (orginally called Ponte della Carità, inaugurated in 1854). If you like renaissance art, do not miss visiting this museum during your visit to Venice.

The building hosting the Accademia museum today, was once a convent and a church (Santa Maria della Carità church).  Under Napoleon's rule in late 18th century, the religious persons from the church and the nearby convent were sent away. In 1807, the old Accademia museum was shifted in those buildings.

Giovanni Bellini's "Madonna and the Child" Series of Paintings

Bellini made a series of paintings of Madonna with the child Jesus. Let me now show you 10 paintings from that series present in the Accademia museum, so that you can appreciate his evolution as a painter.

There is an 11th painting at the end of this post, from his series on the theme of Pietà.

1. From 1448

I am not sure how old was Giovanni when this painting was made and how much did he actually contribute to it. The madonna of this painting does not look very young. Baby Jesus, sitting on a parapet, is holding an apple in his left hand and two fingers raised showing his dual (human and divine) nature. Madonna is expressionless while the child has a knowing expression, much wiser than his age.

2. From 1455

This painting was done when Giovanni was about 20 years old. It is simpler with fewer colours compared to the first one. The baby wearing a black dress, looks younger but still has a knowing expression while he holds his mother's chin with his hand.

3. From 1470

When this painting was done, Giovanni was 35 years old and clearly it is a more mature work, even if it not an oil painting on canvas like the others. Madonna seems to be lit by the light, with a blue sky behind her. Her face has a serenity while looking down at her sleeping son, lying nude, his hand hanging down, almost like a glimpse of the future awaiting them. There is a sense of three-dimensionality, proportions and perspective in this work.

4. From 1475 

Giovanni made this when he was forty. He has light coming in from upper right side, lighting up Madonna's serene and young face, while the light on the baby is more diffused. The baby has a more innocent face, and he makes the sign of his dual nature with this right hand, while his left hand grips his mother's thumb. 

5. From 1480

By now, Giovanni was 45 years old and clearly more skilled as a painter. The whole canvas seems lit by light with bright colours. The background has a light blue sky, fluffy clouds and the Euganei hills near Padua. The baby has a knowing and petulant look, as he holds his right hand in the two-fingers sign while his left hand discreetly seeks his mother's touch.

6. From 1485-90

Now Giovanni has crossed fifty years, he is recognised as a maestro. Perhaps, this means that now he can experiment and try new colours and ideas. The most distinctive change in the painting is the use of bright red colours in Madonna's gown and the heads and wings of the six cherubs on the clouds floating above. The baby seems to be wearing a modern looking night-shirt. The baby also has a more child like expression and seems to be talking to his mother.

7. From 1485-90

This is also from the same period. In this, the two have a green screen behind, the surface of the parapet is painted green, and in the background on the two sides there are two trees. The baby is nude, has a more child like expression and his left hand holds his mother's fingers. Once again the whole canvas seems to be lit by light.

8. From 1488 (With St Catherine and Magdalene)

This is a more complex work. Compared to the two women saints on the two sides, dressed in rich clothes and wearing jewellery, Madonna looks similar to the other paintings above. The baby seems lost in ecstasy. While the background is dark, the 4 figures seem lit by an external light, creating a few shadows. It seems to have clear Flemish or Dutch influences.

9. From 1490 (With St Paul and St George)

Like one above, this one also has two figures standing on both sides of the mother and child. However, this painting has much more in common with his other works - light blue sky with clouds, a red screen behind them, all the persons lit by a light coming from the left with a hint of shadows in the right side of the canvas.

10. From 1503 (With St John Baptist and a Woman)

This painting was done when Giovanni was 68 years old and it is even more complex, with a detailed urban background with the Vicentino mountains behind them - the houses have a distinct look, may be it shows the city of Bassano. Sheep are grazing on the grassy hills (click on the picture to see a bigger version for the sheep). It is bathed in light with shades of liliacs, pinks, green and light blues. Madonna has a soft and innocent expression. The skin tones of Madonna and the woman on the right seem to have the red tones associated with Titan.

11. From 1505 - Pietà with Madonna and the Dying Jesus

The last painting is from the Pietà series, and is from 1505, when Giovanni was 70 years old. The white-haired Madonna's face is etched with lines of sorrow. A dramatic touch is given by the broken tree on the left of the canvas. The background is in the shade of orange-yellow seems to show Padua with Euganei hills and Vicentino mountains behind. Once again, the whole canvas seems to be lit all over with a diffused light and few shadows. (You can click on all the images for a bigger view.)

Things I Noticed in the Paintings

I think that as Giovanni grew older and more skilled, his works assumed more renaissance characteristics - they seem more three-dimensional, more realistic, while the proportions and perspectives improve.

In most of his paintings, the Madonna has an innocent or an aloof look, she does not seem to be looking at you. I also noticed that in many paintings, her little finger seems to be bent or crooked in the middle - it does not seem very natural. Try bending your finger like that and you will see what I mean.

On the other hand, the baby Jesus has a more knowing look, creating a kind of dissonance because his facial expressions are more adult-like. At the same time, the child's proportions do not always look right. For example in painting number 10 above, the child seems to be too long. Child's ecstasy, with his eyes turning up, in image 8 also made me feel a little anxious.

I love the light and vivid colours that seem to illuminate many of his works. They lack the light and shadow effects (chiaroscuro), which would become a dominant part of later renaissance art.

I also love the tender affection between the mother and the baby, expressed in the way the boy holds his mother's thumb or touches her hand. 

To Conclude

To look at the different paintings of Giovanni Bellini in a chronological manner gives us an idea of his evolution as an artist. At the same time, it gives us an idea of how the renaissance ideas of art were evolving.

Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 and his Monalisa was painted in early 1500s. Michelangelo was born in 1475 and his frescoes of Universal Judgement in Vatican were painted around 1540. Thus, the art of Giovanni Bellini needs to be seen in the context of all the other artists, as they exchanged ideas, knowledge and techniques. 

All the paintings presented in this post are from Accademia museum in Venice. To feel their full impact, you need to look at them in the museum. For example, the sensation of light when you look at painting number 10 above is absolutely incredible. When I saw it, I was transfixed.

BTW, the Telero shown in the first image above was commissioned to Giovanni Bellini in 1515, when he had turned eighty. He was unable to finish it, as he died in 1516. It was completed many years later by another artist, Vittore Belliniano. 

I have been to the Accademia museum a few times, and every time I go there I discover new works which I had not noticed earlier!

*****  

Searching For Lila

I came across the story of Lila Lakshmanan Biro by chance. Half-Indian and half French, she has worked as a film-editor with many of the famous French film-directors like Godard and Truffaut in the 1960s.

Born in 1935, Lila will be ninety years old this year. She lives in an old age home in a suburb near Paris. My artist friend Samit Das, whom I have found on the journey to find Lila, has confirmed to me that she is fine and keeping well.

I first met Lila in a book when she was called Lila Herman. Finding her reincarnations into other names was an exciting search. This is the story of that journey.

 My First Encounter With Lila

I came across her first when she was known as Lila Herman, while doing research about the Roberto Rossellini - Sonali Dasgupta story.

In December 1956, Roberto, well-known Italian director, famous for his neo-realistic films like Rome, Open City and Paisà, came to India to shoot a film. Sonali Dasgupta, wife of Indian producer-director Harisadhan Dasgupta, was supposed to collaborate with Roberto. The two fell in love and this created a huge scandal in India. Hounded by journalists and an upset family, Sonali looked for support. She found some support in Lila Herman.

At that time, Lila was married to Jean Herman, an aspiring film-director. Jean was teaching French in Bombay in those days, was one of Rossellini's assistants for his film. They had a son in Paris in 1955 and then come to Bombay, where they had stayed for 2 years.

That is how I started my search to learn more about Lila Herman, but I found very little. She edited some films in early 1960s and then disappeared. 

Lila Herman to Lila Lakshmanan

The search for Lila Herman was a little complicated because her husband film-director Jean Herman had also disappeared and had become famous as Jean Veutrin, a well-known French mystery-writer. 

She had disappeared because she and Jean had divorced. After the divorce, she had become Lila Lakshmanan and had continued to work as film-editor. However, after a few years, even the trail of Lila Lakshmanan also turned cold.

Lila & Atila Biro

Searching for Lila Lakshmanan brought me to her second marriage to the well-known French architect and artist of Hungarian origins, Atila Biro. She had become Lila Biro.

Her husband Atila was born as Attila in Hungary in 1931, studied in Germany and settled in Paris. As a painter, he chose to write his name as Atila. Many of his works are part of different European art museums.

Atila and Lila married in 1963. Together, Atila and Lila, travelled to Italy, Marocco and many times to India. Atila had a large number of exhibitions in different European countries and the two often travelled together for those events. I don't know if Atila and Lila had any children. Atila Biro died in 1987. You can check some of his works on the Facebook page of Atila Biro foundation.

Lila Biro's Book

In 2012, Lila Atila Biro wrote a book called "Atila, Le soleil des métamorphoses" (Atila, the Sun of Metamorphosis).

The preface of this book was written by Lila's first husband Jean Vautrin (Herman), who wrote about his admiration for Atila's paintings.

I think that Jean and Lila had separated because she was in love in Atila. She married Atila, soon after her divorce while Jean had his second marriage a few years later. However, the three of them, Jean, Lila and Atila, probably continued to be good friends. 

Lila Biro Interview in 2017

In 2017, an event was organised in Paris on visual mapping of modernism in Indian art. In that connection, some art exhibitions and talks were organised, in which clips from some of Lila's films were also included. On that occasion, in an interview to Bombay Mirror by Sumesh Sharma, Lila had shared some information about her life:

"Lila was born in Jabalpur in 1935, where her father Lakshmanan was the director of All India Radio, while her mother was French. As a child, she had lived in Delhi, Lucknow and Bombay. Then her parents separated and 12 years old Lila arrived in a boarding school in England.

She went to Sorbonne to study English Literature when she was 17. Lila successfully graduated and went to study at the French film school ID’HEC, where she met her first husband, Jean Herman, now better known as the French writer Jean Vautrin. She was studying editing as she didn’t think she was creative enough to be a director.

During her last year at the film school in Paris in 1955, she gave birth to her son. Lila’s mother, found a job for Jean Herman teaching French Literature at the Wilson College in Bombay, thus, they lived there for 2 years until the end of 1957.

Regarding the Roberto-Sonali story she said: “I was with Rossellini, when he met Sonali Das Gupta. He was a man who had the accomplishment of perusal; he would be convincing and would get his way with people. When Sonali’s affair became public, she came and lived with me on Carmichael Road."

In the End

In late 1960s, Lila Biro continued to work as editor for different well-known French film directors. Thus, in the films she edited, her name appears as 3 different persons - Lila Herman, Lila Lakshmanan and Lila Biro. I think that she stopped working as film-editor in early 1970s.

About the impact of her work, in 2023, film producer Daniel Bird said: "Lila Biro is a remarkable character who witnessed Rossellini in India, played a key role in the cutting of key titles of the French New Wave, and was a close collaborator of the Hungarian émigré painter, Atila Biro. For me, however, she’s also the star witness in a crime against film grammar: the jump cut. The editing style of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless is now legendary, but I’ve always wondered what it must have been like in the cutting room when that revolutionary editorial decision was made. Thanks to Lila, that moment is vividly brought to life."

There was another Indo-French woman connected to the films - Leela Naidu. Leela was 5 years younger to Lila. In 1955, when Lila and Jean had come to Bombay, Leela was crowned Miss Femina. I wonder if the two had met and had been in contact in India or in France.

I am also curious about Lila and Jean Herman's connections with the films in Bombay, as the two had just come out of the cinema institute in Paris and must have been very interested to collaborate with Indian film-makers. It was the time when films like Mughle Azam and Devdas were being made.

To conclude this article, here is a romantic picture of a dedication of a painting by Atila to his "ma Lila cherie" (my dear Lila) from 1969 (click on the picture for a bigger view).

I wish I could talk to her and do a long oral-history chat to explore her memories.

***** 

Note: The first image of Lila presented above has been made from 2 images I found on internet. However, I could not find any picture of Lila and Atila together. The second image of Atila's dedication of a painting is taken from the facebook page of Atila Biro foundation.

"Still Life" Art Exhibition Schio 2024

During Nov.-Dec. 2024, the Schio artists' group organised its annual exhibition. The theme for this year was "Still Life". The Italian word for "still life" is "Natura Morta" (dead nature), which I think that describes the subject better than the English version. Somehow, the words "still life" make me think of the game "statue", in which you are supposed to stand still like a statue.

Here are a few works from this exhibition that I liked. Click on the images for a bigger view.

Giuseppe Fochesato

I really liked this more contemporary interpretation of the theme by Giuseppe Fochesato, two paintings with a limited palette of colours, giving impression of the early morning on an autumn day and the coffee cups waiting for the persons to wake up and to begin the day.

His Facebook page has some other examples of his work in the same style - washed out colours and light beams illuminating the spaces. You can also check some of his works on his blog.

Daniela Baroni

Daniela had only one work in the exhibition, a painting with two dried sunflowers and a dead robin. The sombre theme of the painting clashes with the bright red feathers on robin's breast and, the purples, greens and the pale yellows of the background.

Gianbattista Clementi

Clementi had two artworks in the exhibition. While one was the classical still-life painting with a flower vase and autumn berries, the other was more abstract and I spent some time looking at it. With winter trees, a small cup and some drying leaves which look like dying fish, I found it more unsettling. 

Antonio Capovilla

I am a great fan of Antonio's long-limbed clay statues. I was surprised to see his two artworks in the exhibition, because I had no idea that he made that kind of work. However, he informed that he makes all kinds of art, from sculptures to mixed material collages and oil paintings.

I know that Antonio's wife is a poet and I told him that I would like to interview both of them together to learn about their reciprocal influences.

His two works in this exhibition included a collage of dried leaves from his garden against a white resin background and a composition made from different kinds of leathers in which he made swirling-holes to create geometric patterns.

You can check Antonio's Instagram page and Facebook page to see his other works, including his beautiful sculptures.

Livio Comparin

Livio had only one work in the exhibition but it is beautiful, though I am not sure if it can be called "still life" because it includes a sparrow and a dragonfly, which are attracted by the ripe fruits - black and white grapes, plumpy peaches, a few fat plums and some autumn-tinted vine-leaves. Just looking at the painting, makes me feel hungry. I think that it will be a good painting to have in the kitchen or next to our dining table.

Livio is a well-known artist of Schio, he has been active over the past 6 decades with water colours, graphics and even comics.

Lanfranco Dalle Carbonare

Lanfranco had 2 classical compositions of still life in the exhibition, one with flowers and the second with a mix fruits, dominated by a green-striped melon. I like his straight forward compositions, almost minimalist with plain backgrounds. You can check his Facebook page for some more examples of his works.

Moreno Dalla Vecchia

Moreno is the president of the Schio's association of artists. I have already written about Moreno's artistic journey in this blog.

In this exhibition, he had two watercolours, one predominant in blue and the other in yellow-orange. He has experimented with his compositions as well, one has an old lamp and a colourful flower-vase, while the other is focused around a piece of pumpkin, both are beautiful.

Lucio Mantese

Lucio is a wonderful artist. In this exhibition he had 2 works - one a beautiful copy of a famous still-life painting of a fruit-basket by Caravaggio. The second work was a wonderful composition of corn-cobs, old drying apples, a pulley and a bucket. I love the way he is able to bring alive the corn-cobs and the metallic texture of the bucket and the ladle (click on the image for a bigger view to appreciate this).

Apart from being a wonderful painter, able to copy famous painters, Lucio also teaches ballroom dancing (Liscio). You can check some of his other works on his Facebook page.

Mauro Marzari

The last artist that I have chosen is another person, Mauro Marzari, about which I have already written on this blog. Mauro makes wonderful abstract works. His two works in this exhibition have a yellow-metallic finish with rectangles presenting a still-life object - an apple in one and a skeleton in another. Both the paintings give an idea of brooding sadness, as if commenting on the short lives of their subjects.

Conclusions

It is wonderful that our tiny little town of Schio in the foothills of Alps in the north-east of Italy, has so many opportunities related to art and culture. This has given me the possibility of talking to some of them and to learn about their artistic journeys, which is a great privilege.

*****