150 fifty years after the first official exhibition, the one organized by the photographer Nadar on 15 April 1874 in Paris, Impressionists - The dawn of modernity arrives in Rome, an anthology that celebrates the movement at the Historical Infantry Museum, from 30 March to 28 July , with over 160 works by 66 artists, among which Degas, Manet, Renoir and the Italian De Nittis stand out. "An exhibition with a particular, unprecedented slant, created specifically for this place", explains Vincenzo Sanfo, member of the scientific committee directed by Vittorio Sgarbi and also composed of the former director of the Musée du Petit Palais and Membre Ecole du Louvre, Gilles Chazal, and by the former director of the Musée de Chartres and Musée Paul Valeéry, Maithé Vallès-Bled.
Divided into three sections (From Ingres to L'Ecole de Barbizon, the ferments of Impressionism; Impressionism; and The legacy of Impressionism), the exhibition, produced by Navigare srl, embraces a time span that goes from the beginning of the nineteenth century, with works by Ingres, Corot, Delcroix and Doré, all coming from private Italian and French collections, reaching the heirs Toulouse-Lautrec, Permeke, Derain, Dufy and Vlamininck, concluding in 1968 with an etching by Pablo Picasso , homage to Degas and Desboutin. But not only. Alongside the little-known works of the great protagonists, such as Pissarro, Degas, Cézanne, Sisley, Monet, Morisot and Renoir, the canvases of supporting artists such as Bracquemond, Forain, Lepic, Millet, Firmin-Girad and the Lecomte del Bateau sur la also stand out riviere chosen as the symbolic image of the exhibition. And again, here is an unusual focus on drawing, engravings and printing techniques, so strongly influenced by the advent of photography. "The impressionists - says Chazal - abandon the academic painting of large historical paintings and begin to portray each other or immortalise moments of everyday life. They have a much less courtly vision of painting".
The collection of books, letters and personal objects, such as the teapot from Monet's service, should also be read from this perspective. "Impressionism is not a movement, but a human condition that arises when the painting of reality is defeated by the invention of photography - comments Sgarbi -. It is life, the possibility of representing states of mind. It is made to tell us that that reality provokes within us. For this reason it will never end. It is no coincidence that a tragic impressionist like Van Gogh speaks of himself, but he speaks to the world. Impressionism is a condition of the spirit, this is what the exhibition means. What until that moment did not count, like the teapot in Monet's service, unthinkable for example in Tiepolo's paintings, suddenly with the Impressionists it becomes an eternal subject and moment. Bringing the Impressionists and this exhibition to Rome, a city traditionally so far from Paris, and to Infantry Museum is not just experiencing new places - concludes the critic -. It is bringing life, because the impressionists are the end of the war. And conquering a space of war with an art exhibition that displays a teapot, is bringing peace ".
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