An italian painter in Paris, Boldini
Bottegantica Gallery, Milan
Galleria Bottegantica in Milan pays tribute to one of the undisputed protagonists of nineteenth-century Italian painting with forty masterpieces, some of which have never been exhibited in public.
From October 23 to December 20, 2015, Galleria Bottegantica in Milan (via Manzoni 45) hosts an exhibition dedicated to Giovanni Boldini (Ferrara 1842 - Paris 1931), among the greatest exponents of Italian and international painting, the artist who was able to best interpret the dreams of a world in the balance between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Curated by Enzo Savoia the exhibition will retrace the fundamental stages of the Ferrarese painter's career through a selection of forty masterpieces - some of which have never been exhibited in public - focusing on works executed in Paris between 1871 and 1920, the period of his full creative and stylistic maturity.
The itinerary will present important works, such as the nucleus of paintings executed for the merchant Adolphe Goupil, where the prevailing subjects are courteous or allusive, set between a gallant eighteenth century, oriental exoticism and an exciting contemporaneity. From this mixture, a series of works comes to life, dense with material and color, where the protagonists are ladies dressed in the fashion of the time, with a mischievous naivety and full of subtext. Boldini's women are modern interpreters of a lively femininity, often portrayed against the backdrop of lush landscapes. The one posing here is Berthe, Boldini's beautiful model and lover for almost a decade, whose graceful physiognomy returns frequently in the paintings of the period.
Equally interesting are the landscape impressions of the French countryside and the fascinating views of the Ville Lumière, characterized by a singular realism in which the artist from Ferrara demonstrates his mastery of both small and large formats, basing each of his creations on a careful study of reality. Exemplary are the Farmyard (1884) and An Afternoon Walk (1884) where the life of the Parisian surroundings dazzles the public and drags it far away to discover an intense and suggestive palpitation.
The exhibition will also explore the evolution of Boldini's style in the genre of portraits, from official effigies to those depicting friends and colleagues. This is the production in which Boldini's gaze and heart are most in tune with those of his contemporaries, such as Degas, Manet, Sargent and Helleu. Helleu's refined pastel Nu couché will be displayed in the exhibition, along with a large series of drawings by Boldini, including those dedicated to the young and beautiful Eugènie Legrip, nicknamed "the divine".
Starting in the 1890s, his canvases brought to life a gallery of illustrious figures, women above all, interpreters of an increasingly independent femininity. Portraits such as those of Countess Gabrielle de Rasty, Lady Nanne Schrader or Madame Lacroix capture the charm of the Parisian world of beauty: a world interpreted and recorded in its truth by those quick, snappy, decisive brushstrokes which made Boldini one of the most sought-after portraitists. Loved by the ladies of the fin de siècle, Boldini's work was thus described by the critic Thiébault-Sisson in 1896: "in the rough art of accentuating, by the suddenness of a movement, by the unexpected, sometimes daring pose, by the grace and seductive note of his models, Boldini knows no rivals."
A Bottegantica catalog accompanies the exhibition.
Milan, July 2015
