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From Scapigliatura to Futurism
Alongside the
exhibition devoted to Picasso, Palazzo
Reale in Milan is also hosting an
extraordinary exhibition that spans
almost sixty years. A historical time of
intense political and cultural change,
the half century in question goes from
the second half of the Nineteenth
Century to the end of the First World
War. In those days, Milan played a
leading economic and moral role in an
Italy heading towards its difficult unification. It was a city of modernity
and change, spawning and adopting
artists with fresh cultural and artistic aspirations. This is the essential focus
of the exhibition: to throw light on the
modernity of Lombard art during that period, as it emerged and then grew
increasingly strong.
A hundred works illustrate the
development in theme, style and form,
progressing from the Scapigliatura
movement by way of Divisionism through
to Futurism. This theory concerned with
history and art, corroborated by
scientific studies, is presented to the
general public for the first time at the
new exhibition. The exhibition focuses
on the continuity that existed between
the Futurist movement and the two
preceding trends.
The exhibition opens with the work by Piccio, distinctive in its use of light,
thinning out over figures rendered
ethereal by the effusiveness of the colour, and considered a source of
inspiration by the
"Scapigliati".
The anti-academic climate, which also
involved Federico Faruffini, was food
and drink to the generation of artists
associated with the Scapigliatura
movement proper. They are Tranquillo
Cremona, Daniele Ranzoni, Giuseppe
Grandi, Eugenio Gignous, the famous
sculptor Medardo Rosso and many others.
Young artists who experiment with a new
stylistic approach using wispy brush
strokes and intense brilliance, shaded
with new effects in chiaroscuro.
Indeed it was the studies of light and
refraction set in motion by the
Scapigliati that brought on Divisionism,
too long considered a slavish imitation
of French pointillisme. Italian
Divisionist art, whilst absorbing
ultramontane culture, explores the
content of its subjects, favouring
socio- political themes and verismo.
The Divisionist section of the
exhibition has works by Giovanni
Segantini (including his masterpiece L'ora
mesta), Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo,
Emilio Longoni, Angelo Morbelli and five
exceptional canvases by Gaetano Previati,
including Il carro del sole,
central panel of the Trittico del
Giorno, a triptych providing an artistic
summary of the exhibition's three components: Scapigliatura,
Divisionism, Futurism.
It was in fact Previati who, alongside
Giacomo Balla, would be a master of the
Milanese Futurists, represented in
the exhibition through famous works by
Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini. Varied and
multiform works testify to the new
aspirations brought to art by Futurism:
from eclectic studies of motion, to the
exaltation of technology and of the
nascent urban metropolis, to the most
intimate Futurist and Divisionist
portraits of women.
Dalla Scapigliatura al Futurismo
Palazzo Reale, Piazza Duomo 12, Milan
Opening times 9.30-20.00, Thursdays
9.30-23.00, closed on Mondays
Ticket price: 15.000 lire, concessions
10.000 lire
Telephone 0239226245, 0239226246,
0239226218
Advance ticket sales on internet http://www.ticketone.it/
Catalogue Skira, 24x28 cm, 288 pages,
lire 90.000 |
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