Today, I would not stay behind the computer typing up my Sorbonne notes and making sense of what the course was all about. Today I would return to the Orangerie to see the Macchiaioli (1850-1874) entitled "Italian Impressionists?". The difference is this. 9-30in the morning there is no-one and 2-30pm ..... The same again inside waiting for tickets.
With my magic card, I was inside at once and 20 minutes later, I was out again.
The Italians were infinitely more realistic in their approach than the French impressionsts. I always hope when making the effort to see artists that I dont know, that I will learn something. This time around, the answer was no, except perhaps to confirm that certain periods are just not me. The realism in such cases was practically photographic. So pretty for so many and so - yes, I'm going to say it - boring for me. Two pictures did catch my eye.......
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| Oxen pulled by Men - Fattori |
The effort that was made by some and the symbol of the priviledged behind. Giovanni Fattori’s (1825-1908) was one of the leaders of this movement. The description is that of peasants pulling Oxen. Frankly it is the Father and child (?) who caught my attention.
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| Soldier who falls - Fatorri 1880 |
And this too, but only because I feel sorry or the horse....
I'm sure if you want to know more, you can but here is the description for the exhibition in question.
The Macchiaioli were a group of rebellious artists working in Florence in the mid 1855s, mainly from Tuscany but also from other parts of the country from Venice to Naples.
Who were these Macchiaioli with their untranslatable nickname? “Tachistes”, from the French term for "stain" or "blot", was a pejorative label that appeared in the press in 1862 and which they then adopted. They brought a breath of fresh air into Italian painting, breaking with the prevailing Neoclassicism and Romanticism, and reviving Italy's pictorial culture. They were regarded as the initiators of modern Italian painting.
The Musée d’Orsay, in its desire to show the widespread influence of painting in the second half of the 19th century, felt it should bring to the attention of the French public one of the most poetic movements of this period, very similar to the visual experiments of the Impressionist artists.
This painting had a crucial influence on Italian film directors like Luchino Visconti and Mauro Bolognini, who found in it an iconographic inspiration and an idiom specific to the image.
A breath of fresh air ? I preferred to be sitting in the Tuilerie gardens looking at these. Far more rewarding.
Although I must say that the Ferris wheel and the Louvre make an odd combination.....
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