This is a late bounce of Claudia's post on art online.
One of the best things about spending some time in Italy is having the chance of absorbing art at its best. Nevertheless, the worthwhile art we are unconsciously thinking about is often much more than two-centuries-old. Shame on us. I had the chance to prove me wrong about modern Italian art when Federico, a friend of ours (that will sooner or later contribute to this blog), took me on a trip to Ferrara.
The excursion planned by Federico was originally intended to cover an exhibition on the occasion of 500 years anniversary from the first edition of the Orlando Furioso, an epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto, that -to my astonishing- was already playing with the Cavalry stories, also in ironical sense, almost 73 years before El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. But apart from this exhibition, we found another one in Ferrara, L'arte per l'arte or art for art's sake, dedicated to a collection of works of some artists from Ferrara active after the second half of 1800's and early 1900's. So, we killed two birds with one stone. And what a couple of birds!
The exhibition related to the Orlando Furioso was a great discovery for me. On one side, it was a well-curated collection of items that put ourselves in contact with contemporary art, warcraft, politics, and geography, of Ariosto's times; and on the other, it was extremely well narrated by the audio guide -which in fact was no less than an essay in itself.
The second -although chronologically the first- exhibition that we saw opened a whole new register of art to me. It was mainly focused on paintings from Art Noveau style. Some of this kind of paintings simply amazed me, e.g., "The funeral of Britannicus" by Giovanni Muzzioli (1988) and "Target. The bombing of Reims Cathedral" by Giuseppe Mentessi (1915). The list of paintings is linked here. So, the only outsider was Filippo de Pisis, a metaphysical painter such as the probably better known Giorgio De Chirico.
Remember the two-birds idiom? Well, is like if the second was pregnant. There was a whole pavilion devoted to De Pisis! Not long ago, Federico had introduced me to metaphysical painting and, even more general, to some interpretations of still life I was not familiar with. Particularly, Federico made me aware of De Chirico's oeuvre. But one thing is talking about art in an office, and another being in contact with it. Even if it wasn't the founder of the metaphysicists, Filippo De Pisis surprised me for his selection of topics and his technique, but also for devising titles that hold the key to understand the painted scene.
What does art without any interpretation can do apart from pleasing the eye and the eye alone? Shouldn't it also please the mind?
I leave you with one of the paintings by De Pisis that impress me the most. Alla dolce patria or To my sweet home country. Enjoy!
You may find more De Pisis paintings here.
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