Impressionists are on display in Gallarate, from Manet to Renoir, Degas to Sisley

The exhibition Impressionists. At the Origins of Modernity is about to reopen. The MA*GA Museum in Gallarate(VA) will hold the long-awaited exhibition from May 29, 2021 to Jan. 9, 2022, presenting more than 180 works by the major exponents of Impressionism, from Courbet to Pissarro, Degas to Manet, Monet to Renoir, Cézanne to Sisley, and many more, from private Italian and French collections and a number of major Italian museums.

The exhibition, which has been awarded the Medal of the President of the Republic, is promoted by Fondazione Silvio Zanella - Museo MA*GA and the Municipality of Gallarate, with the collaboration of RJMA Progetti Culturali and Diffusione Italia International Group, with the contribution of Regione Lombardia and Fondazione Cariplo, and with the support of Ricola, institutional partner of the Museum, and Lamberti spa.

The exhibition’s scientific direction is by Sandrina Bandera, Emma Zanella, and Vincenzo Sanfo, with critical contributions by Rosa Barovier, Paolo Castagnone, Gilles Chazal, Virginia Hill, Fiorella Minervino, and Gonzalo Fernández Prieto.

Paintings, drawings, watercolors, engravings, and sculptures lead the public along a path of discovery of the transformations of European visual culture in the second half of the 19th century, ranging from Realism toImpressionism and Post-Impressionism, and recounting, as Emma Zanella writes in the catalog, “the definitive exit of art from the realm of myth and its compromise with modern life, the terrain in which to seek the new beauty.”

The tour itinerary is divided into a series of sections, punctuated by the titles of literary masterpieces of the late 19th century, through the works of the artists who exhibited in the eight officialImpressionism exhibitions from 1874 to 1886, in dialogue with applied arts, fashion, music and literature. The first, titled Correspondances after the famous poem, taken from Charles Baudelaire ’s Les Fleurs du mal of 1857, focuses on the relationship between man and nature and features the masterpieces of Gustave Courbet, Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley, among others, alongside those of lesser-known but fundamentally important artists for the Impressionist revolution.

Émile Zola ’s naturalist soul, found in his Le Ventre de Paris, stimulates a disenchanted and direct look at the violence and harshness of both urban and rural life, the same as found in Édouard Manet ’s La barricade (1871) or Camille Pissarro’s La faneuse (1890).

The section La Comedie Humaine, from Honoré de Balzac’s collection of writings, analyzes the practice of portraying one’s fellow painters and critics, poets, everyday friends, in a correspondence of senses and emotions that leads into the atmosphere of those years. The exhibition features a series of portraits including the one of Bracquemond made by Édouard Manet or those of Wagner executed by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Pierre Bonnard. À Rebours, the novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans, inspired the researches of artists such as Paul Cézanne or Paul Gauguin who, in different ways, moved away from the Impressionist lesson to follow autonomous paths that would anticipate the birth of the avant-garde. The exhibition continues with artists such as Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Giuseppe De Nittis, Giovanni Boldini and Federico Zandomeneghi, who were able to represent the social transformations of what Baudelaire called La Vie Moderne (1863).

The works in the exhibition are accompanied by precious original ceremonial gowns from the late 19th century, from a private collection formerly owned by the Queen of Portugal and French noblewomen, and Art Nouveau glassware that testify to the fashion and modernity of fin-de-siècle Paris.

The Nomos Edizioni catalog, edited by Emma Zanella and Alessandro Castiglioni, is enriched by scientific fact sheets dedicated to the artists and works edited by Vittoria Broggini, Alessandro Castiglioni, Francesca Chiara, Lorena Giuranna, and Emma Zanella.

The layouts of MA*GA’s museum spaces, specially redesigned for this occasion, are curated by Angelo Jelmini.

Throughout the opening period, in-person and online in-depth activities will be organized through a rich program of appointments. These include one organized by MA*GA and Ricola on Saturday, June 19, which will feature pianist Bruno Canino and violinist Alessandra Sonia Romano performing music by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Pablo de Sarasate, and Gabriel Fauré.

Ricola, for the fourth consecutive year, will join the Gallaratese museum as an institutional partner, supporting the important exhibition and all cultural activities planned for 2021. The Swiss company - producer of the beneficial 13-herb candies - confirms the great attention it has always shown towards art and culture as a tool for growth and sharing.

Ricola’s free admission days also continue. On the first and third Fridays of each month, from 2 to 6 p.m., the Swiss company will offer admission to all visitors and welcome them with a tasting of its beneficial herbal teas at the MA*GA bar starting at 3 p.m.

The first four events are set for Friday, June 4 and 18, and Friday, July 2 and 16, 2021.

Gallarates-based company Lamberti S.p.A. also confirms its support for MA*GA, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to the cultural enhancement of the area and its well-established proximity to the city’s museum.

The artists in the exhibition: Zacharie Astruc, Antoine Ferdinand Attendu, Emile Bernard, Henri Biva, Frank Myers Boggs, Giovanni Boldini, Pierre Bonnard, Eugène Boudin, Félix Bracquemond, Edouard Brandon, Adolphe Félix Cals, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Renzo Colombo, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Giuseppe De Nittis, Edgar Degas, Marcellin Desboutin, Girard Firmin, Jean-Louis Forain, Dr. Paul dit Van Ryssel Gachet, Paul Gauguin, Thèodore Gericault, Ernest Jean Joseph Godfrinon, Norbert Goeneutte, Armand Guillaumin, César Helleu, Johan Barthold Jongkind, Gaston La Touche, Albert Charles Lebourg, Alphonse Legros, Ludovic Napoléon Lepic, Stanislas Lépine, Jean-Baptiste Léopold Levert, Edouard Manet, Jean Baptiste Millet, Jean-François Millet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Félix Nadar, Constant Permeke, Ludovic Piette, Camille Pissarro, Lucien Pissarro, Jean-François Raffaëlli, Odilon Redon, Frédéric Regamey, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Emile Schuffenecker, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Alfred Sisley, Henry Somm, Henry de Toulouse Lautrec, Constant Troyon, Vincent Van Gogh, Isidore Verheyden, Vincent Vidal, Victor Vignon, Federico Zandomeneghi.

For all infomrations you can visit the official website of the MA*GA Museum.

Pictured: Firmin-Girard, Prairie et Villas (c. 1880).

Impressionists are on display in Gallarate, from Manet to Renoir, Degas to Sisley

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