Monday, December 10, 2012

Venice: Palazzo Fortuny - Fortuny and Wagner - Wagnerism in the visual arts in Italy


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Venice: Palazzo Fortuny - Fortuny and Wagner - Wagnerism in the visual arts in Italy. The exhibition, Fortuny and Wagner - Wagnerism in the visual arts in Italy at the Fortuny Museum, until April 8, and curated by Paolo Bolpagni, installation by Daniela Ferretti, marks the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth (Leipzig, 1813 - Venice, 1883) in 2013. It is the result of lengthy studies on the influence that the German composer and the “Wagnerism” phenomenon had at an iconographic and aesthetic level on the visual arts in Italy from the end of the nineteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century. This is the very first time this theme has been studied or been the object of an exhibition.
 Above:  In the glorious setting of Palazzo Fortuny, sculptures from the Mariano Fortuny collection, undated gypsum, patinated gypsum. Glasses for clouds’ projections, c. 1905, tempera on glass.
 
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The VIP Ladies, President of The Venice International Foundation Franca Coin, architect and curator of the Fortuny Museum, who also is the installation designer of the exhibition Daniela Ferretti and Gabriella Belli director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, the institution  that looks after the eleven Venetian museums.
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Contessnally note: Venice Foundation goes international. This Autumn, Friends of Venice, Italy Inc. was born.  Friends of Venice, Italy aims to encourage and offer new opportunities for encounters between institutions and organizations that enliven Venice socially, culturally, environmentally and economically and to support innovative ideas, helping their creation, in order to, contribute to the diffusion of knowledge and a greater awareness of the problems and emergencies Venice faces, and to help to preserve its heritage and its identity.

 
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Palazzo Fortuny - Fortuny and Wagner - Wagnerism in the visual arts in Italy.  Mariano Fortuny (1871-1949) played a key role, as he was the author of a Wagnerian Cycle with 46 paintings (all belonging to the museum) and numerous engravings; the entire cycle is on display here for the very first time. The museum is the perfect place for an exhibition like this: Spanish by birth but Venetian by adoption, Mariano Fortuny was greatly influenced by the figure of Richard Wagner who, in turn, had a very intense relationship with the city, and spent long periods of his life there.
Above: The Studio of the Artist, undated, tempera on canvas by Mariano Fortuny and a Self-Portrait, 1947, tempera on cardboard.

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Giuseppe Tivoli’s Portrait of Richard Wagner, 1883, oil on canvas.

 
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From the City of Leipzig, Thomas Krakow coordinator of The Year, Richard Wagner 2013, president of the Associazione Richard Wagner di Venezia Alessandra Althoff Pugliese and the director of Klinger Forum Museum in Leipzig Goerg Zochert.
  Courtesy Palazzo Fortuny, Musei Civici di Venezia
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Palazzo Fortuny - Fortuny and Wagner - Wagnerism in the visual arts in Italy.  The characters and vicissitudes of Wagner’s musical dramas (Valkyries, Nibelungs, maiden-flowers, Parsival, Siegfrieds, Tristans ...) occur repeatedly in the paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, illustrations and postcards during that period in both Italy and the rest of Europe.
Above: Mariano Fortuny, Wagnerian Cycle – Parsifal, The Flower Maidens, 1896, oil on canvas.
 
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Palazzo Fortuny - Fortuny and Wagner - Wagnerism in the visual arts in Italy.  Curator of the exhibition Paolo Bolpagni, “Wagnerism was a true cultural fashion that, in its diverse expressions (literary, musical, and painting) enjoyed widespread and profound diffusion. In the field of the visual arts it was one of the most typical manifestations of the aesthetic style at the turn of the eighteenth century, between late Naturalism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau.”

 
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The beautifully restored, with micro financing from The Venice International Foundation, Mariano Fortuny’s stage model for The Reingold applied Bayreuth’s Theatre model, 1903.
   
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Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Bayreuth Theatre floor plan, undated, pencil ink and tempera on paper.

Courtesy Palazzo Fortuny, Musei Civici di Venezia 
Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, Self- Portrait, 1890, photograph.

 
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Architect and curator of the Fortuny Museum, who also is the installation designer of the exhibition Daniela Ferretti is photographed with Mariano Fortuny’s original mannequins.
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Model of Villa Pisani in Stra, Sante Benato and Giovanni Gloria from a drawing by Gerolamo Frigimelica, carved and painted wood, c. 1720.
 
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Head of the restoration team Stefano Provinciali.

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In the foreground, Teodoro Wolf Ferrari’s Notte, 1898, oil on canvas.

  Architect Barbara Foscari and the Dean of Architecture, IUAV University of Venice Amerigo Restucci.
 
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Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo.
 
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Giuseppe Barbieri, professor of History of Modern Art and director of the department of Art History of Ca' Foscari University and Silvia Burini Pro-Rector at Ca’ Foscari University.

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Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo’s The Discord, undated, tempera on canvas.
 
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Barbara Berlingieri
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Joan Brossa – Antoni Tapies, Carrer de Wagner, 1989, artist’s book.

 
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Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo – Costumes: L-R Cloak, Jago’s costume c. 1935. Stage costume, after 1910. Surcoat after 1920. All printed silk velvet.
Contessnally note: the famous Fortuny printed  cloth on the wall.

  Luxury lace fabric designer Nadia La Valle.
 

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Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo’ s famous Delphos silk taffeta pleated dress with glass beads, after 1909, Manifattura Fortuny.  Printed silk gauze cloth on the walls after 1910.
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 Contemporary jewelry and glass designer Maria Grazia Rosin.


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Antoni Tapies, Urbilder (Diptych), 1988, oil on canvas.

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Palazzo Fortuny - Fortuny and Wagner - Wagnerism in the visual arts in Italy: The Bayreuth Theatre. Buy a seat and contribute through micro financing to the restoration, organized by The Venice International Foundation, of this historic model. Since 1891 Mariano Fortuny was completely captivated by the allure of the staging of Wagner’s theatre, however many years passed before he concretely measured himself against the theatre experimenting at length with both lighting and technology and the preparation of scenographic sketches.  It was in fact starting with the realization of scenographies linked to the works of Wagner that the model (at top) was born in 1903.  Made of wood and metal and now kept in the Fortuny atelier, it is a reconstruction of the layout and the risers of the setting of the German Bayreuth Theatre

 
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