LENS.- This year has been marked by a series of exhibitions called ‘Italian Hours, Treasures of Italian Painting in Picardy, 14th–18th centuries’, featuring a selection of 230 paintings from museums and churches in Picardy. Following on from the exhibition of 14th- and early 15th century Italian paintings at the Musée de Picardie in Amiens, of Renaissance works at the Musée Condé in Chantilly, of works from the 17th century at the MUDO-Musée de l’Oise and the Quadrilatère in Beauvais, and from the 18th century at the Musée National du Palais in Compiègne, the
Louvre-Lens has organised an exhibition combining the Italian collections from Picardy and those from the Nord-Pas de Calais to mark the creation of the new Hauts-de-France region.
The exhibition draws on work that has been carried out since the 1980s on the Italian paintings conserved in France leading to the creation of the Répertoire des Tableaux Italiens en France (RETIF), which has been published online by the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA) and lists more than 1,000 Italian paintings in the Hauts-de-France. This inventory has made it possible to make a selection of around twenty paintings from two former regions divided into four groups within which works are linked by theme, period and style.
The tragedy of landscape: nocturnes, storms, marines and shipwrecks
As Pliny the Elder suggested in the 1st century, depicting the ephemeral – in particular reflections and natural phenomena – enables artists to exert influence beyond their time. As this selection of 17th- and 18th-century landscapes shows, painters succeeded in capturing the uncapturable. They became fascinated by the movement of waves, stormy skies, twilight and ‘catastrophes’ of the kind that preoccupied Enlightenment thinkers following the terrible Lisbon earthquake of 1755.
The stormy landscape featuring ships on the point of capsizing was a sign of divine punishment and reflected the fascination with the ‘enigma of existence’ (Diderot). Populated by small, anonymous figures, landscapes provided an opportunity to recreate the spectacular grandeur of nature in all its diversity and richness. Dotted with figures inspired by mythological or hagiographic tales (recounting the lives of saints), landscape painting evolved, leading to the depiction of an idealised, imagined ‘composite landscape’.
‘Maniera’ motifs: Charity and the Holy Family in the 16th century
Sixteenth-century Florentine Mannerism, sometimes defined as a ‘stylised style’, exerted a huge impact in Renaissance Italy, and even beyond the Alps. Florentine artists such as Andrea del Sarto, Rosso Fiorentino and Benvenuto Cellini spoke this new language of Italian art and their works were collected by François I, who subsequently invited them to his court. As can be seen in these three works, which are being displayed together for the first time, the inventions of the masters of the ‘modern manner’, to borrow Giorgio Vasari’s term, also drew on the inventions of their predecessors, Raphael and Michelangelo.
Franciabigio and Andrea del Sarto were among the first to reinterpret the Raphaelesque style as exemplified by the Virgin and Child with Saint John the Baptist, also known as ‘La Belle Jardinière’, in the Musée du Louvre. By adopting the pyramid of interlocking full-length figures present in these works, the two artists established a formal device that would remain popular until Francesco Salviati’s famous Charity.
In Caravaggio’s shadow: tenebrism and ‘naturalist’ painting in the 17th century
The 17th century was a period of profound change in Italian art, thanks to the emergence of such great artists as Caravaggio (1571–1610), who was among the most brilliant and controversial. During his brief career, he succeeded in imposing a naturalist, tenebrist painting style, in particular making skilful use of chiaroscuro, a treatment that would become widespread throughout Italy and subsequently the rest of Europe.
His style was initially used in religious painting, which the Catholic Church, threatened elsewhere by the Reformation, was keen to use as a tool with which to win over hearts and minds. This was particularly true of altar paintings, such as the impressive Saint Sebastian by the Sienese artist Francesco Rustici and the magnificent Miracle of Saint Donatus of Arezzo, a mature work by the century’s greatest Neapolitan painter, the Spaniard Jusepe de Ribera. Small private devotional works were painted in the same style, such as the Adoration of the Shepherds, an oil on copper by Tanzio da Varallo. This al naturale painting also spread to non-religious painting, notably in half-length paintings of a variety figures, such as Ribera’s philosophers and the still anonymous faux pendants from the Musée National de Compiègne.
Painting history: biblical and mythological tales
‘Ut Pictura Poesis’ (‘Painting is like poetry’), which appeared in a poem written by the Latin poet Horace in the 1st century BC, became the dictum of history painting. Painting was thus regarded as a silent form of eloquence in which words were replaced by forms and colours. Sacred and profane texts inspired large works in horizontal formats intended for picture galleries and offering food for thought.
The Bible provides stories of strong women, icons of virtue, such as the unjustly accused Susanna, who inspired Giovanni Martinelli to paint Susanna and the Elders, and the triumphant Judith depicted by Francesco Cairo in Judith and Holofernes.
The Baroque style that emerged in Rome in 1630 resulted in dynamic compositions with luminous colours. The Quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon by Baciccio faithfully captures an episode from the Trojan War recounted by Homer in The Illiad. In around 1730, the Neapolitan Rossi borrowed the theme for his Freeing of Lucina from Ariosto’s 16thcentury epic poem Rolando furioso.
During the same period, the vibrant brushwork of the Genoese Alessandro Magnasco produced a fantastical, disquieting Adoration of the Magi, showing a nevertheless quiet episode from the birth of Christ that is recounted in the Gospels.
