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I Macchiaioli Art Exhibition
February 20
€12
The exhibition “I MACCHIAIOLI
Palazzo Blu in Pisa
8 October 2022 to 26 February 2023
10:00am – 5:00pm
This exhibition retraces the exciting evolution and revolution of the Macchiaioli, who gave birth to one of the most original avant-garde movements in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century.
It is in fact a retrospective of over 120 works, mostly masterpieces from private collections, usually inaccessible, and from important museum institutions such as the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, the “Leonardo da Vinci” National Science and Technology Museum in Milan. , the Galleria d’Arte Moderna – Musei di Genova Nervi and the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome.
Much has been said and represented about the art of the Macchiaioli, but without ever being able to fully restore the international visibility it deserves. And this above all because the competition with French Impressionism, set as unavoidable by critics since the time of Roberto Longhi, has so far prevented a complete and autonomous reading of the Macchiaioli story.
Today more than ever, nationalist visions having fallen in favor of a pro-European and international outlook, we are more inclined to dilute the Franco-centric conception of the history of 19th-century European painting and, without diminishing the universal scope of the Impressionist message, to highlight with greater objectivity the vital links of cultural dialogue between peoples that have contributed to the evolution of European civilization. In this context, the story of the Macchiaioli takes on an even more interesting relevance, as does Tuscany, a land of choice for their artistic experience. These painters therefore appear for what they actually were, that is, the key to an open, proactive, honest and daring dialogue with the most important artistic communities in Europe of the time. The term “Macchiaioli” was coined in 1862 by a reviewer of the Gazzetta del Popolo, who thus defined those painters who around 1855 had given rise to an anti-academic renewal of Italian painting in the realist sense. The meaning was obviously derogatory and played on a particular double meaning: going into hiding in fact means acting stealthily, illegally.
