From Batoni to Chardin, challenge to the Baroque to Venaria

TURIN - From Pompeo Batoni (so appreciated as to be called to portray 3 Popes, 22 monarchs and an impressive number of aristocrats) to Jean Simeon Chardin (beloved by Vincent Van Gogh who considered him "great as Rembrandt"). And then Maratti, Trevisani, Conca, Giaquinto, Pannini, Boucher, Cametti, Legros, Bouchardon, Ladatte and Collino. There are spectacular paintings and altarpieces, sculptures, tapestries, drawings, engravings, furnishings and precious objects in the exhibition "Challenge to the Baroque, Rome Turin Paris 1680-1750" set up from March 13 to June 14 in Turin. And precisely in the monumental spaces of a location that is in itself a hymn to Baroque architecture and a UNESCO treasure, namely the Juvarrian Citroniera of the Reggia di Venaria.
The exhibition, which counts on 200 masterpieces from the most prestigious museums around the world, public and private institutions, religious bodies and private collections, leads visitors on an extraordinary journey into the Europe of art between the end of the seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. The challenge is played between the cosmopolitan Rome of the Popes which renews its role as custodian of the size of the models and the Paris of the sun king Louis XIV and Louis XV who comes to designate the primacy of the French modern school, seeking the natural in the Ancient and choosing new references for the representation of the newspaper in the Flemish and Dutch masters. Among them the Turin of Vittorio Amedeo II and Carlo Emanuele III, which thanks to the creativity of the royal architect Filippo Juvarra, is confirmed as a laboratory of the modern city by presenting an extraordinary gallery of contemporary painters of the Schools of Italy set up in churches and court residences.
Curated by Michela di Macco and Giuseppe Dardanello, flanked by an international scientific committee, the exhibition which the Louvre has also collaborated on is the result of an articulated research project carried out within the framework of the Age and Age Research Program. Baroque culture of the 1563 Foundation. It was organized by the Consortium of Savoy Royal Residences thanks to the support of the Compagnia di San Paolo and with partner Intesa Sanpaolo. "With this courageous exhibition, also for the unpublished approaches and contents it expresses, we intend to continue our" challenge "aimed at the search for modernity and the experimentation of new forms and cultural languages" says Paola Zini, president of the Consortium of Savoy Royal Residences.
"As part of our new approach to projects that looks at the 17 sustainable development goals of the UN 2030 agenda, the Compagnia di San Paolo has rooted the belief that Culture contributes to the economic, social and environmental dimension of sustainable development in our country. "adds Francesco Profumo, president of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation. (HANDLE).