Padova
Today, contemporary art is a significant focus, but the Brooklyn Museum has cultivated avant-garde art since its origins two hundred years ago. It is the second-largest art museum in New York, with a collection of over 140,000 objects, and perhaps the first popular venue, besides the homes of American industrialists, to immediately grasp the revolutionary importance of the French modernist movement that was causing a scandal in Europe.
The museum's curators began soliciting donations and purchasing paintings from overseas as early as 1846, eventually forgoing natural history collections to concentrate solely on art. In 1921, the Brooklyn Museum dedicated a major exhibition to French masters. Of the 5,000 European art pieces, including prints, a small nucleus of loans has been touring the world for the past 10 years. Now, under the title 'French Moderns 1850-1950: From Monet to Matisse,' it arrives at Palazzo Zabarella in Padua until May 12, 2024, curated by Americans Lisa Small and Richard Aste.
Fernando Mazzocca, director of the foundation established by patron Federico Bano, notes that this exhibition marks 25 years of Palazzo Zabarella's exhibition activity. On this occasion, they explore the vibrant and fertile time of the 19th century with great international artists.
The air is filled with the scent of Paris, yes, of plein air painting but also of romantic and realistic suggestions, and the precursors of the Fauvist and Cubist revolutions. In this international dialogue, against unconventional colored walls 59 masterpieces are displayed, marking a turning point, breaking free from rule-filled Salons and heralding the winds of the New Century.
Organized into four sections, there is room for still life, which becomes 'alive' with dreamlike colors and forms, from Renoir's coded blue cup with apples to Matisse's Fauvist flowers. Then, the landscape becomes tremulous and blurred because, in real life, light constantly changes, as seen in Monet's depiction of the English Parliament building, Pissarro's 'The Ascent,' or Cézanne's village of Gardanne. A third section is dedicated to the nude in its everyday truth, depicted by Rodin's bronzes and his marble 'Danaide,' as well as the deconstructed divers of Fernand Léger. The fourth section examines portraits and figures that intersect fashion and character, but also social conditions, such as Francois Millet's 'The Shepherd Taking Care of His Flock' – a cloak that forms a pyramid of shadows – and the 1912 portrait of a lady by the most French and glamorous Italian, Giovanni Boldini. Among the joys of color are the lesser-known Jozsef Rippl-Ronai, a Hungarian artist responsible for 'Woman with Three Girls,' Chagall's 'The Musician,' and Matisse's 'Woman in an Armchair.'
Open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
(GdV, 20 dicembre 2023)