An elegant, cultured and refined exhibition: De Nittis. Painter of modern life.
For the first time, Palazzo Reale is celebrating, with a solo exhibition that promises to be breathtaking, the talent of one of the greatest artists of the Parisian belle époque: Giuseppe De Nittis.
The exhibition will present almost one hundred works, both oil and pastel, from the Musée d’Orsay, the Petit Palais of Paris, the Uffizi Galleries and from private collections in Italy and abroad.
“A worldly society, frivolous yet aestheticizing, sensitive to the fashions of La Belle Époque, and insensitive to those who do not touch it directly. It hides nothing of the vanities, lies, errors, cunning, perversities, generosity or secret ills of its characters, whose inspiration we believe today to know. It scourges hearts and souls with cold delicacy, lends the same objective respect to ridicule and pathos, allows itself, like the child who hides to be seen, concealing itself behind the fiction.” Wrote Maurice Denuzière.
An exhibition dedicated to celebrating the figure of an international artist who, together with his Italian colleagues Giovanni Boldoni and Vittorio Matteo Corcos, managed to stand up to the great masters of Impressionism.
Throughout the exhibition, De Nittis is shown to be a true Parisian master who, however, felt more at home far from the upper-class salons, seeking to reproduce the details of a glorious and elegant period in history with extreme care and attention.
The Apulia-born master depicted stunning women, as well as landscapes and cities such as Paris and London, European cities that he was extremely fond of.
From Barletta, his hometown, to the French capital, from the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples to Florence, where he met the Macchiaioi, De Nittis was a skilled representative of the vivacity of modern life.
From 24 February to 30 June 2024, Palazzo Reale, Milan.
Opening image: Giuseppe De Nittis, Pranzo a Posillipo, 1879 ca olio su tela, 109 x 173,3 cm Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milano © Comune di Milano – tutti i diritti riservati – Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Milano