Works by greater and lesser-known Impressionist artists go on display in Rome on Saturday in an exhibition marking the 150th anniversary of the 19th century artmovement's birth.
Impressionists - The Dawn of Modernity, on show at theHistorical Infantry Museum until July 28, presents over 160works by 66 artists, including Degas, Manet, Renoir and theItalian De Nittis.
It is "an exhibition with an unusual, unprecedented angle, created especially for this exhibition space," said VincenzoSanfo, a member of the scientific committee directed by controversial art critic and former cultural undersecretaryVittorio Sgarbi and also including the former director of theMusée du Petit Palais and Member Ecole du Louvre, Gilles Chazal, and the former director of the Musée de Chartres and Musée PaulValeéry, Maithé Vallès-Bled.
In particular, the show highlights a little-known aspect of Impressionist research, dedicated to drawing, engraving and printing techniques, influenced by the then recent invention of photography.
Consequently, oil paintings are exhibited alongside preparatory sketches, studies and lithographs of works well known to the general public.
The exhibition is divided into three sections collectively embracing a period that runs from the early 19th century, with works by Ingres, Corot, Delcroix and Doré, all from private Italian and French collections, to the heirs of Toulouse-Lautrec, Permeke, Derain, Dufy and Vlaminck, and ending in 1968 with an etching by Pablo Picasso.
In it, the little-known works of the great protagonists of the movement, such as Pissarro, Degas, Cézanne, Sisley, Monet, Morisot and Renoir, are set alongside 'supporting actors' such as Bracquemond, Forain, Lepic, Millet, Firmin-Girad and Lecomte.
"Impressionism is not a movement, but a human condition," said Sgarbi.
"It is life, the possibility of representing states of mind, this is what the exhibition is all about.
And to hold it here is not just to experience a new exhibitionspace: to conquer a place dedicated to war with an artexhibition that also displays Monet's teapot, is to bring peace,” he added.
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