Roberto Mantellini - The exam

The work can be defined as a genre scene, that is, the depiction of an episode of everyday life that, apparently, lacks any significant element. These types of domestic subjects were long considered minor and only began to spread in Western art starting in the 17th century. Only with the development of 19th-century realism did everyday subjects become considered equally important as historical or religious ones. More specifically, Roberto Mantellini's artistic production is directed at investigating, along the lines of existentialism and the analysis of human relationships, a bourgeois world, captured in its everyday gestures and rituals.

Roberto Mantellini's artistic poetics recurs in most of his works. The scene depicted is realistic, yet lacking in physiognomic details, objective details that could identify the situation or even place it within a social context. Mantellini's existentialist art is not interested in external social reality, but rather in the inner reality of man, which the artist explores through his expressive means. The pictorial deformations that characterize Mantellini's paintings are a means of expressing his existentialist anxieties. The artist thus precisely frames the scene, defining an interior, a restricted space in which the subjects are forced to interact with one another. In this space, the artist highlights internal tensions by expressively deforming the subjects, who are pervaded by emotional vibrations. These vibrations also reverberate throughout the work, emphasizing solitude and the difficulty of connecting.

Roberto Mantellini was born in Naples in 1946, where he currently lives and works. His encounter with painting occurred at an early age. His apprenticeship with Professor Amilcare Astone, a painter of great sensitivity, was crucial, preparing him for admission to the art high school in Naples, where he graduated in 1965. During that period, he had the privilege of studying with masters such as the young professors Gianni Pisani, Carmine di Ruggiero, and Bruno Starita, and the older ones Guido Tatafiore, Raffaele Lippi, and Domenico Spinosa. He exhibited his works in numerous shows throughout Italy.

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