Organized by Giorgio Conti Foundation of Carrara and edited by Massimo Bertozzithe exhibition Belle Époque traces the main changes in Italian painting after the Unification, when the regional schools were overcome, a national imprint was recomposed and finally the aim was for a new artistic culture suited to the modern times of the “new Italy”.
The exhibition presents around ninety works including paintings, watercolours, pastels and bronze and plaster sculptures which cover the chronological period from 1864 to 1917 and which are divided into seven sections, functional to accompanying visitors through the last Macchiaioli heartbeats, to then touch upon the effervescence of Scapigliatura and observe the final results of Divisionism. That is, naming some of the protagonists of these decades, from Fattori and Lega to Boldini, from De Nittis to Nomellini, up to Balla. And halfway through the journey the focus is on sculpture, with a synthesis of the connotations of Libertybetween the Pascoli symbolism of Leonardo Bistolfi and the aristocratic elegance of Paolo Troubetzkoy.
In search of a national and international dimension, in the decades following the Unification, Italian painters approached the innovations of modern times, directing their attention no longer, or not only, to life in the fields and the poetry of nature, but to the scenarios citizens, where material well-being and new worldly and cultural satisfactions began to spread. The convenience of living and new lifestyles make a fine display in the works of artists, while at the same time entrepreneurs, exponents of high finance and the aristocracy become promoters of the arts, collectors or patrons, marking a distance with the academies and other public institutions. All this means that the intellectuals and creatives who were most committed during the Risorgimento perceive a sort of betrayal of their ideals: feelings of revulsion and rebellion are then formed, also influenced by the suggestions offered by the “bohemian life”, and the “dualism” of the Scapigliati is generated: on the one hand they are driven by the drive towards noble and lofty ideals, on the other hand they take pleasure in the most degraded aspects of civil life. And during the Giolittian age, characterized by a rather widespread apathy, the reaction of the artists seems to be the only one to keep up with the times thanks to the development of Divisionism, the symbolist suggestions and the first signs of the futurist avant-garde and Metaphysics .
Marta Santacatterina
