Queer Places:
Villa Foscari o La Malcontenta, Mira, VE
University of Cambridge, 4 Mill Ln, Cambridge CB2 1RZ
Cimitero di San Michele
Venice, Città Metropolitana di Venezia, Veneto, Italy
Albert "Bertie" Clinton Landsberg (September 21, 1889 - March, 1965)
was the son of banker Albert Landsberg (1851–1923) and Lucy Ethel Williams. A bon vivant, Bertie Landsberg pursues his yearning for the true and the beautiful.
In 1926 he bought Villa Foscari "La Malcontenta", together with his friends
Paul Rodocanachi and
Catherine d'Erlanger. After splendid summer salons, he had to flee from fascism, which had taken over anti-Semitism, in 1939 and returned in 1947. After the war, he visited the villa for a few weeks each year until his death in 1965. Lord
Claud Philimore inherited the building
and later sold it again to the Foscari family.
The death in March 1965 of Bertie Landsberg has removed from the
artistic world of Europe and America a remarkable and rarely gifted
personality.
Born in Brazil, he descended through both parents from distinguished
European and North American stock. He was educated mostly in England, at
Harrow and Cambridge, and later in Paris. But it was in England that he
felt most at home. So much was this so that, when an attaché at the
Brazilian Embassy, he so far forgot his status as to apply for British
nationality; a lapse which his ambassador happily took with good humour.
He had the unusual advantage and strength of being broadly clear, at
the age of 11 or so, that his aim in life would be the study and pursuit,
the possession and adoration, the constant contemplation and evaluation of
beauty in all its forms. And though tossed about by all, or more than the
normal flux of change, chance, passion and desire, he never lost sight of
that aim.
Paul Rodocanachi, Portrait of Bertie Landsberg, 1912
Pablo Picasso, Bertie Landsberg, 1922
Lord Snowdon, Bertie e Dorothea Landsberg at La Malcontenta
From earliest days he was a passionate looker, absorbing form, light
and shade, texture, pattern, colour relationship : noting and comparing.
And judging by absolute standards, without prejudice or predilection. His
mind was singularly free and open to new impressions and modes. His
approach to all works of art was sensual rather than intellectual and he
became scholarly chiefly from having 'read' and remembered an immense
quantity of works of art, rather than books about them: though these, too,
followed or accompanied. His reaction to a work of art was spontaneous and
immediate, though he might return to it for a lifetime of study and
observation. This approach helped him greatly in his creative work both in
Italy and over the beautiful house he evolved from a ruin in Portugal and
for which he de-signed so much of the furniture and fittings with rare
taste.
He was 35 when he first saw the Villa Foscari at Malcontenta and gave
himself up to a love affair which ended only with his death, and which
remains his most moving memorial. He knew little of Italy at the time
except from pictures and books, having concentrated on France and England.
The impact of the noble old building was instantaneous, overwhelming and
never diminished. He has beautifully told its story and his own part in it
in the pages of Country Life.
Two perfections are fused now in that building: that of Palladio and
his fellow-artists and Bertie Landsberg's recreation of it and its
adaptation to modern use. One hears of many 'perfect' houses, 'perfectly'
arranged. The epithet is loosely used. Malcontenta is the great exception.
Never has such perfect harmony between building, decoration, furniture and
objects been so perfectly achieved. Not a form, not a colour, not a
texture is out of place, or does not serve to enhance and complete the
archi-tectural whole. And all this is achieved by the simplest, yet most
artful, means. This extraordinary two-fold work of art comes as a
revelation to all who see it.
One might be inclined to think his achievements somewhat slight: a
beautiful old house rescued and recreated, another with its ordered
gardens and dependencies formed from a few low, rambling ruins into an
earthly paradise; designs for furniture and so forth; a slim volume of
sensitive poems. Until one comes to examine them, and to realize that it
requires a lifetime's ex-perience and knowledge to create with such
restraint and such distinction.
And then how to estimate what he gave out in generous, com-passionate
human sympathy and understanding? And to remember the riches of his
conversation! He had a mind so stored with sensitive knowledge,
observation, and distilled experience, that the most casual, chance remark
would often release a flood of thoughtful comparison, embroidery and
reminiscence which would leave one gasping at so rich a return on so
paltry an invest-ment. The enthralling torrent of words would flow, eager,
apt, and illuminating, interrupted by warm, infectious laughter and more
than Jamesian parentheses - on the landing of the stairs, over an
unceasingly renewed lather while shaving, at ease in the beauti-ful rooms,
or across the table over delicious and prolonged feasts in the shade of
the acacia grove at Malcontenta. Conversation shared with and taken up by
so many people who represented all that was most vital and creative in the
artistic world of many countries.
Gifted with good looks and charm, he never lost, as physical bulk
gained on him, his finely bred features and appearance. Indeed his size
seemed only an emanation of his large warmth of heart, generosity, and
compassion, and a token of the assurance and certitude which study and
experience had brought him.
His enthusiasm never waned or faltered, and to the day of his death he
always planned and acted as if what he was creating or doing would have
eternal values. Those who knew him can only feel that it will.
My published books:
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