A painter of joy even in his name, a painter who “has always dazzled critics with the splendor of his painting, the beatific radiance of his works, and the light that pervades his altarpieces and frescoes, all bathed in…
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Tucked away as it is inside a horizontal display case—the kind used to display books, the kind that usually goes unnoticed—the portrait of Ferrante Imperato at the museum risks being overlooked, of going unseen. This is also because at…
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At PM23 in Piazza Mignanelli in Rome—where the Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti Foundation hosts its cultural initiatives—the exhibition *AURA. Valentino Garavani and Ewa Juszkiewicz* begins with absences. The walls feature…
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Anyone who spent time in Bologna in the 1990s surely remembers a stylized goose with long, jointed legs that chased itself from one street to another across walls, doorways, roll-up doors, and electrical cabinets—whose appearances seemed…
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Mechanically distracted by an illusion of decisive—if not definitive—meaning when faced with a work of art (or, more simply, even when looking at an image or a shape), we tend to forget any possible dissonance, any possibility of openness…
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To his contemporaries, the frescoes that Pontormo painted in Florence on the walls of the choir of San Lorenzo must have seemed an extreme, laborious expression of defiance— that “negative Sistine Chapel,” as Luciano Berti had…
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The Renaissance man is guided by certain absolutes toward which he also strives through the liberal and practical arts, but he ultimately discovers a new dimension—that of the aesthetic value of ugliness—which asserts itself through…
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The exhibition in Cento is truly dazzling, focusing on that ancient and fascinating technique that over the centuries came to be known as “painting with colored glass”: that is, an extremely refined method of producing color images that…
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Every year in Italy, there are countless exhibitions—in almost incalculable numbers. In each exhibition, there is almost always something interesting: an adventure, a comparison of works and styles, or even the chance to see how different…
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The ceiling of the Bagatti Valsecchi library is right before our eyes: if you try to lift your chin, you’ll see the frescoes and grotesques in their proper places, motionless, exactly where they’re supposed to be. Then, as you…
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These are silences that permeate the Maremma countryside, the result of a mind that viewed those fields, those pine trees, those rivulets, and those marshes as one might view a gold ground, a painting by Piero della Francesca, or a…
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Contemporary American society is rife with deep-seated structural tensions. On the political front, with Trump’s second term and the contradictory emergence of the MAGA movement, the fragmentation of the two historic political…
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Exhibition reviews Art Fairs Artissima Contemporary art
Today, overindulgence in food is no longer the joyful Rabelaisian utopia of the “Land of Plenty”; rather, it represents a symptom of inner turmoil, an emotional void, or a pathology linked to consumption and control over the…
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Exhibition reviews Art Fairs Artissima Contemporary art
Born in New England in 1834 and having moved to Europe at a very young age, James McNeill Whistler was not only a key figure in European painting during the Post-Impressionist era, but also a theatrical character, witty and irreverent, a…
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Exhibition reviews Contemporary art
Once upon a time, there was the Renaissance. Once upon a time, there was drawing; once upon a time, there was painting understood as an architecture of figures and perspectives. Then Titian came along and everything changed: a new…
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Exhibition reviews Assisi Saint Francis Tourism Travel
It’s only natural, when standing before the works of Francesco Gioli and his brother Luigi, to feel a sense of calm—a fresh, fragrant calm. It’s like inhaling the scent of freshly cut grass, hearing the clatter of a…
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