A curious exhibition follows the appearances of the fly in the visual arts starting from the school of Giotto and up to the contemporary: it is 'Musca Depicta', hosted at the Labirinto della Masone in Fontanellato (Parma) from 6 April to 30 June. The small insect will invade the exhibition rooms on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the publication by FrancoMaria Ricci of the volume Musca depicta, in which an essay by André Chastel retraced for the first time the artistic incarnations of the buzzing dipteran in European painting from the 15th to the 17th century.
The aim of the exhibition, curated by Sylvia Ferino and Elisa Rizzardi, is to broaden the picture outlined in the book, offering a multifaceted reading of an insect that has always been considered annoying and inappropriate, whose representation over time has revealed controversial backgrounds and curiosities. More than fifty works including canvases, graphics, sculptures and manuscript and printed volumes unfold along the route according to a specific thematic order but, as Leon Battista Alberti recalls in the Eulogy contained in the fundamental incunabulum that opens the exhibition, the fly is free: it knows no hierarchies or limits of relevance.
In ancient times, the realistic representation of a fly in the painting could suggest different interpretations, from the Christian warning not to indulge in worldliness, to the idea that the ephemeral little creature could embody the artist's fleeting fame, through deception - trompe l'oeil -which demonstrated the painter's virtuosity. This illusionistic joke changes meaning over time, between those who considered the fly a mortuary and precarious symbol and those who instead found themselves an insect like many others who found themselves having to compete in still lifes with the most attractive butterflies. The fly also rests indifferently on food and animals, as in the motionless and hyper-realistic works of Maurizio Bottoni, while in the video Fly by Yoko Ono it is a naked body that is crossed for 24 minutes.
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