Sandro Mantovani, Balboutet (Sestriere), Oil on Panel, 1967, Framed

Landscape painter Mantovani is an objective and calm descriptor of
georgic and alpine motifs and of well-perspectived scenery
Benacesi and Monferrine.
Mantovani's art is decidedly nineteenth-century: for certain green
harsh and cold that snap against backgrounds of all too shiny sky
and azure, it evokes the pointed landscaping of Marco Calderini.
In the descriptive tablets of Cavoretto and Pino Torinese, the
rapid brushstrokes render the moment of light on houses, al-
beri, on the meadows and lanes dipped almost always within a light
clear and molcent. Mantovani is highly commendable as a witty
portraitist of fierce beasts and of lovable and gentle farm animals.
This Franciscan layman before whom even the least
tame or most fearful stand patiently posed, is not only-
so much a learned scholar of comparative anatomy, but a keen
observer of the instincts of beasts in the wild or caged. Wolves
and teddy bears, martens and squirrels, frogs and stoats are his
his favorite models for elegant beauty and stupendous
mobility. The artist spends long hours in contemplation of the
most varied and delightful belligerent attitudes, always plastic and pit-
toric.
In a lesser tone, but with the same thoroughness, Mantovani
pursues the ideals of the animalists of the last century who were more "scien-
tific , that is, more concerned with reproducing the physiognomy of the most beautiful
beasts of creation.