Montepulciano and Rome confront each other in the art of the Grand Tour. An exhibition at the Crociani Picture Gallery in the Tuscan city.

Scheduled at the Museo Civico - Pinacoteca Crociani in Montepulciano (province of Siena), from July 14 to October 7, 2018, is the exhibition Montepulciano and the Eternal City. Landscapes and Views from the Aesthetics of the Grand Tour to the Mid-20th Century, which intends to compare the two cities, Montepulciano and Rome, and their depictions in the images conveyed by protagonists and comprimarios of the Grand Tour. The paintings on display cover a span of time from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, documenting the last glimpses of a custom, that of the Grand Tour, which especially in the eighteenth century had had one of its epic moments, as already amply documented by many important exhibitions on Vedutism.

In the exhibition, curated by Roberto Longi with the collaboration of Renato Mammucari and Fabrizio Nevola, and organized by the Municipality of Montepulciano, he brings Rome and the Roman countryside as well as the city of Montepulciano and its surroundings to life in the more than one hundred oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, and period engravings collected for the occasion. All are views of the two cities or of the rural environment that surrounded and often interpenetrated them at the time. The exhibition examines both paintings of minor importance but endowed with important documentary value, as well as those of high artistic merit: thus, at the Crociani Art Gallery one can admire important works by Carlo Labruzzi, Michelangelo Pacetti, Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Luigi Petrassi, Ranieri Rossi and works by Ettore Roesler Franz, the “prince of Roman watercolorists.” Especially interesting are the views that foreign artists of Rome, and of this part of the Sienese land, offer, such as the Spaniard Juan Gimenez Martin, the Englishman Samuel Prout, the Bavarian Karl Lindemann-Frommel, and the Swiss Salomon Corrodi, another great watercolorist who executed numerous views for Tsar Nicholas I and Queen Victoria.

In addition to the paintings, the exhibition features a selection of objects that, carried by the servant, accompanied the “Tourista” on his long journey, and which constitute considerable evidence of an era and a way of life: from the travel bureau, to portable inkwells, to travel apothecaries, indispensable in times of malaria, to utensils for organizing, on the way, a great snack. The noble traveler had to be perfect on every occasion: so here is the tie press, the jewelry box and the fragrance box, but also the pound-weigher, the travel chessmen to be pulled out of luggage to make evenings at inns less monotonous. Then the ever-present travel sticks that could be transformed into an effective defensive weapon when needed or preserve an invigorating and secret reserve of fine liquor. Finally, the last section of the exhibition, offers the public the artist’s working tools while traveling: from oil paint boxes to watercolor boxes, from palettes to materials for graphic techniques, from sketchbooks to work folders.

The exhibition is part of two projects carried out by the Crociani Art Gallery: one is entitled “Reflections of Landscape,” and it began in 2010 with a major exhibition on the Macchiaioli; the second is dedicated to the emergence of high-quality Private Collections. As is the case with this exhibition, which draws, extensively, from two notable Roman Collections, as well as from numerous private Polizian collections with works never before exhibited to the public. With the Municipality of Montepulciano, owner of the initiative, the Fondazione Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte, the Fondazione Musei Senesi, Vernice Progetti Culturali, the Pro Loco of Montepulciano and the Pegaso Telematic University - Montepulciano Branch collaborate on the exhibition. For info visit www.museocivicomontepulciano.it or call 0578 717300.

Pictured: Carlo Labruzzi, Roman Countryside.

Montepulciano and Rome confront each other in the art of the Grand Tour. An exhibition at the Crociani Picture Gallery in the Tuscan city.

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