Venice, October 29, 2021- Eighty works displayed along eight rooms of the Castello Visconteo of Novara, to explain the myth of Venice, and let the visitor dip into the magic atmosphere of the lagoon city. An exhibition that brings together works of some of the greatest masters working in the lagoon city during the first decades of the Nineteenth century, who have affected, thanks to their teaching and work, the evolution of Venetian painting during the second half of the century. From October 30, 2021, to March 13, 2022, “Mets Percorsi d’arte”, Castello Foundation and the Municipality of Novara, celebrate the 1600th anniversary of Venice, through the exhibition “The myth of Venice. From Hayez to the Biennale” (Il mito di Venezia. Da Hayez alla Biennale): a selection of the most significant works- the majority of which are unpublished, since they come from private collections- by the most famous Italian artists of the second half of the nineteenth century. An opportunity to retrace the main steps of Venetian art, from Romanticism until the birth, in 1893, of the Art Biennale which, since that date, has thrown the city into the international scene, offering her a constant and productive comparison between Italian and foreign artists.
On display five canvases by Francesco Hayez (1791-1882)- including “Venus playing with two doves” and “Portrait of noblewoman”- as well as paintings by the artists, Venetians and not, who have contributed to the transformation of the “view” perspective into the “landscape”, like Ippolito Caffi (1809-1866), Giuseppe Canella (1788-1847), Federico Moja (1802- 1885), and Domenico Bresolin (1813-1899), which was one of the first to study photography and to be appointed as official “landscape painter and photographer” by the art Academy. Professor of Landscape since 1864, Bresolin was the first to let young students paint en-plein-air, in the lagoon as in the mainland, so that they could study the effects of light and compare themselves with new and exciting environments, different from which they were used to.
In addition to this, as in a sort of small monographic exhibition, twelve works by one of the most popular and beloved Venetians landscape artist, Gugliermo Ciardi, will be exhibited, canvases that- starting from the nineteenth century- document the evolution of his painting until the early nineties. An entire room will be fully dedicated to Luigi Nono, with a focus on one of the painter’s most famous work: the “Refugium peccatorum”, as well as studies, drawings, and other significant works of comparison, such as “Le due madri” (The two mothers).
Canvases, that reflect the renewal and the change in taste in venetian painting, will also be exposed, in direct comparison with the figurative culture of the many foreign painters who were taking part into the International Art Biennale, as well as daily life scenes, dedicated to the so-called “real life painting”.