(by Nicoletta Castagni).
A magnificent selection of
20th-century Roman art from the capital's Modern Art Gallery
(GAM) is on show at the Magnani Rocca Foundation located at the
Villa of Mamiano di Traversetolo near Parma.
The neoclassical building - known locally as the 'villa of
the masterpieces' for the artworks it hosts - is showcasing
masters including Giacomo Balla, Gino Bonichi, Giorgio De
Chirico, Mario Mafai and Giulio Aristide Sartorio through July
5.
The artworks are on show alongside the villa's prized
permanent collection of art historian and collector Luigi
Magnani (1906-1984), which includes paintings by the likes of
Cezanne, Goya, Renoir, and Titian.
Magnani was a long-time resident of Rome, where he taught
medieval and modern art history at La Sapienza University.
"He mingled with the cream of society, where he met most of
the artists, novelists and intellectuals of the Eternal City,"
said curator Stefano Roffi.
"We are now exhibiting art from the 19th century and,
while we wait for the museum to be enlarged, we also want to
promote the 20th-century part of our collection," said GAM
Director Federica Pirani.
The show begins in the first decades of the 20th century -
when symbolic tension gave new shapes and colors to landscapes,
as seen in Sartorio - to move on to the season of the Roman
Secession, which followed in Gustav Klimt's footsteps.
From the beautiful Violette by Enrico Lionne - the show's
icon - to the magnificent Doubt by Giacomo Balla, who even
designed the frame in this pre-Futurist portrait of his wife
Elisa, the selection culminates with In The Park by Amedeo
Bocchi, an homage to Parma through a painting able to emanate an
intrinsic light.
Futurism is present in its latest aeropainting stage - with
landscapes seen or imagined from above - dominated by a sense of
speed and dynamism typical of the movement founded by Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti.
Indeed the exhibit showcases his wife Benedetta's
stunningly modern Capri sea view, alongside works by Enrico
Prampolini, Fortunato Depero and Gerardo Dottori.
The voyage through 20th-century Roman art continues through
the artistic genre of a 'return to order', or the rediscovery of
masters such as Piero della Francesca, after the extremism
pursued by the movement's initiators - though with a new
sensitivity.
The exhibit's section on still-life paintings is stunning
with masterpieces by, among others, Felice Casorati, Filippo de
Pisis, Riccardo Francalancia, Roberto Melli and a marvelous
mosaic by Gino Severini.
Also on display is De Chirico's Battle of Gladiators, Carlo
Carrà's Football Match, Antonio Donghi's Woman at the Vanity
Table and Felice Casorati's ambiguous Susanna.
The last two halls of the show are dedicated to the leading
exponents of the Roman school with their savage, disorderly, at
times violent painting style.
From the roofs depicted by Fausto Pirandello to the Home of
the Trajan's Forum by Mafai and the beautiful Dean Cardinal by
Scipione - which evokes the end of the world with a surreal
atmosphere - the movement is showcased with all its disruptive
expressive vision.
The show at the beautiful villa in the Parma countryside
also features the iconic Roman roofs depicted by Guttuso.
A friend of Magnani - he often visited the villa, always
leaving in the guest book a drawing of the peacocks populating
the park - the Sicilian painter was at the forefront of the
debate on the relationship between representation and
abstraction.
But, at the end of the show, perhaps the scene is stolen by
the big, and abstract, Speech by Giulio Turcato with its red
flags, an inspiration for Guttuso himself.
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