EXTRACTS: Drawing from History: The Forgotten Art of Fortunino Matania © The Book Palace (340 PAGES in Full edition)

Drawing from History 4 The teenage Matania began to help Eduardo with magazine illustrations and, aged fourteen, travelled to Milan with his father to convince the doubting editor of L’Illustrazione that it was indeed possible for someone so youthful to produce such sophisticated work. Legend has it that the boy Matania made a sketch on the spot to prove his ability, much to the astonishment of the assembled editorial team. Engaged by the magazine he often found himself performing the same trick to officials at functions who also refused to believe the press pass he had produced was his, and not stolen from his father. Kept busy with work for L’Illustrazione , he also collaborated with his father on a series of illustrations on the life and reign of King Vittorio Emanuele of Savoy, first King of Italy written by Giuseppe Massari, and published by the magazine in 1901. The late 19th and early 20th century was a golden age of press artistry. While photography had been introduced into magazines in the 1890s, the tones and contrasts of an illustration on the page remained comparatively superior. For the majority of the time, the ‘black and white men’ worked in a monochrome palette known as ‘en grisaille’– a technique using white and grey shades of gouache and watercolour to produce an image that would respond well to printing processes now adopted by magazines. The technique frequently gave the images a realism that was almost photographic in quality, particularly in the hands of an artist such as Matania. Though father and son’s artistic styles were similar, the younger Matania moved away from the romanticism favoured by his father and other artists of that generation in search of something more precise and true to life. Photographic exposure times were still slow meaning that any action scenes could be difficult to capture at the right moment. Artists had an advantage in that they could also concoct a scene which was more dynamic, detailed and better composed while remaining as faithful to reality as possible. Fortunino Matania, working at a time when photography and illustration were at a crossroads, realised that a public that was welcoming ‘the truth of photography’ would expect equal accuracy in its illustrated news pictures. Throughout his career, whether he was portraying recent events or historical scenes, truth and accuracy became the foundations of Matania’s work. He was also inquisitive, fast, and possessed of both encyclopaedic knowledge and a genuine photographic memory. They were all qualities that were to make him pre-eminent among magazine illustrators. There was also work aplenty for an ambitious, young artist. His work began to appear in the leading French weekly, L’Illustration , likely syndicated from L’Illustrazione and, in 1902, still only 20 years old, travelled to London where he began to contribute to The Graphic , one of the leading British publications renowned for its high standard of illustration. 1903 saw him return to Naples to do his National Service in the 8th Battalion of the Bersaglieri. The flamboyant uniform of the regiment, with its cocked, wide-brimmed hat and flourish of black capercaillie feathers, must have pleased Matania, for whom the details of costume and military uniform would be a source of continuing fascination throughout his life. Long after his service, he would continue to wear the badge of the regiment as his tie pin. Photographs from this period show him posing with friends; a group of exuberant and jocular young bucks, Matania himself disarmingly good-looking. While there, he painted a mural in the barracks of Pizzofalcone at Santa Lucia in the Bay of Naples, depicting scenes of conflict through the ages, thus combining two themes that would dominate many of his paintings – war, and the past. Following his national service, he continued to work on freelance commissions when his pictures for L’Illustrazione covering the 1904 Russo-Japanese War attracted the notice of Clement Shorter, keen to secure the very best talent for his fledgling magazine. Shorter offered Matania a permanent position as ‘special artist’ for The Sphere . It was the start of a long and fruitful partnership between artist and magazine that The Sphere fully exploited. Writing some years later in the early 1920s, Shorter gave his assessment of Matania’s superiority over other artists. Far left: Matania posing with some friends in uniform during his National Service. ©The Estate of Fortunino Matania/ Mary Evans Left: A portrait of the artist as a young man.