The powers that be at Museo degli Innocenti know how to put on a show, and the latest Impressionists in Normandy exhibition is no exception. The opening corridor has all the bells and whistles of an Instagram-worthy exhibit: memorable quotes by Monet, Renoir and Pissarro, images of renowned artworks projected and animated on gauze curtains, and a soundtrack of 19th-century classical musical motifs. Fortunately, there’s substance beyond the surface as 70-plus works provide insight on the unbreakable bond between the artistic movement and the northern French region.
The Impressionists first made their collective debut in 1874, when 31 artists who had been ousted from the “accepted” art world decided to put on a show in Gaspard-Félix Tournachon’s photographic studio in Paris’s second arrondissement. Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro and Cézanne all took part in this revolutionary happening, which was predictably met with bitter criticism by, among others, the journalist Louis Leroy, whose Le Charivari magazine piece was headlined with the words “L’Exposition des impressionnistes”, hence the name of the movement.
Opening on November 21 in the sprawling basement of Florence’s Museo degli Innocenti, this generous exhibition begins with Monet’s oil-on-canvas Water Lilies, Pink (1897-99), on loan from Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art. Depicting the artist’s garden in Giverny, the subject is both evident and evanescent, a masterwork in the sublimination of water and nature in paint that will no doubt draw in winter exhibition goers. While other “big names” line the walls, works by lesser-known artists attract the gaze: Franck-Myers Boggs’s rendering of morning sea fog in Dieppe, Charles Angrand’s entrancing take on a meadow and Guillaume Fouace’s still life of an orange and a silver cup.
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The opening section focuses on the Saint-Siméon farm, where artists found fertile ground for creativity amid lush nature and toiling in the fields. Sections two and three take a look at seaside living and labouring (Trouville, Sainte-Adresse), separated by an interactive mirrored corridor mimicking a “walk out to sea”. Beneath cross-vaulted ceilings, the fourth segment explores the image of Normandy as a land of abundance before finishing with a nod to the river Seine and the complications of capturing water on canvas. Given the Museo degli Innocenti’s steadfast educational component, families will be entertained by practical modules dedicated to the chemistry of colour theory and the history of pigments.
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While the exhibition is generous in its scope and presentation, the ticket price errs on the steep side (16 euro), so make the most of the various discounts available for Unicoop Firenze cardholders, I Gigli passholders and people who present a Mercato Centrale exhibition brochure (14 euro) as well as Freccia rail ticket holders (12 euro).
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