ROME BRITISH ART ON SHOW

 

British art has never been well known or appreciated in Italy. Two splendid exhibitions, running contemporarily in Rome and covering the works of major artists of the '700 - '800 should help to fill the lacuna.

“Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner, Pittura Inglese verso la Modernit�” gives a fascinating insight into the classical period of landscape and portraiture, dominated by a series of artists who took much of their inspiration from travel in Italy, but who re-interpreted the underlying pictorial principles of Italian art to create their own vision of society.

This is the latest in a string of 43 inspired exhibitions, held over the past fifteen years, that have covered a wide range of subjects, organized by the Fondazione Roma, a non-profit organization very active in the fields of international arts and culture.

The exhibition sets out to illustrate the social, political and economic conditions that favoured the flowering of art in an 18th century England in full boom as the empire expanded. Curated by Caroline Brook and Valter Curzi, it gathers together over 100 works from galleries and collections both from prestigious museums, such as the British Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Victoria & Albert, the Royal Portrait Gallery, the Royal Academy, the Museum of London, the Galleria degli Uffizi and the American Yale Centre for British Art and from lesser known collections. Of great interest are some works from private collections that have rarely been on public view before, such a Canaletto from Alnwick Castle and works from small provincial galleries. 

Divided into six themed sections that cover the evolution of London into a great world metropolis, the revolutionary discoveries in the world of exploration and science and the development of a distinctive British school of art, the satirical works of Hogarth and the Shakespearian mythology evoked by Fussli, the pre-eminence of portraiture, landscape and the development of the art of water colour.

The exhibition runs until the 20th July 2014 at

 Palazzo Sciarra, Rome

Info:www.pitturaingleseroma.it          www.fondazioneromamuseo.it

 

“Alma Tadema e I Pittori dell'800 Inglese” at the Chiostro del Bramante until the 5th June 2014  makes an interesting follow-up to the “Hogarth, Reynolds and Turner” exhibition as it illustrates the entirely different road that British artists took in the Victorian era compared with their predecessors. The “Aesthetic Movement”, epitomized by Lawrence Alma Tadema did not strive to capture or document social reality. The search was for perfect beauty, harmony and poetry, using largely fictitious or idealized subjects. Originally considered “chocolate box” images, the works of these artists are now finally being appreciated as they deserve. The flower theme prevalent in the paintings is imaginatively reflected in each room of the exhibition, with the dedication to a particular plant and corresponding poem.     

                                                   MARGARET STENHOUSE 

 

Info: Tel. ++39.06.916508451      www.chiostrodelbramante.it

 

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Posted on 22 May 2014 by Editor
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