A very prestigious exhibition, displaying a great cultural and artistic impact, is the show housed by Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia, arranged by the Brescia Association for Great Exhibitions and Events, by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and by the Lombardy Regional Authority, which has reported an extremely high number of visitors ever since the first weeks.

This event, which is supervised by the art historian Renato Barilli, represents a serious investigation aimed at analysing the existence of an impressionist movement similar to the French one, but not dependent on, or deriving from it. The underlying criteria are the same that stress the importance of the notion of impressionism, which is the great realist-naturalist season dominating the entire western culture, following the influence of French artists such as Corot, Courbet and Millet, aiming at “Plein Air” atmospheric values. From a chronological point of view, the exhibition covers the period ranging from 1860, time by which the artists born earlier than 1930 were no longer working on historic or genre themes, but focussing on environmental values, to 1895, the year in which the first Venice Biennial was opened and a time in which Impressionism was moving towards its “post” period, and therefore into fading.

Italian Impressionism is entirely centred on a regional parameter which does not conclude or question the unitary factor. The exhibition presents about forty Italian artists, divided into regional schools, who interpreted Impressionism between 1860 and 1895. This impressionist movement differed from the French one and, because of this, proved absolutely fascinating. This artistic production includes the Tuscan outcome of the Fattori “macchia”, the landscapes of the Neapolitan Palazzi, the Lombard Scapigliatura represented by Cremona and Ranzoni and the dynamic darts of Boldini’s painting, which was very successful in Paris with its portraits. Let us now come to the exhibition. A central role is granted to the Tuscan Macchiaioli, starting with the generation of the ‘20s, including Fattori, Lega, Cabianca and Banti, who, having abandoned historical themes, developed with increasing liberty the “macchia” theme; then we have the younger members, that is Borrani, Signorini, Abbati and Sernesi, who strikingly stood out among the French contemporaries they had to face. After the “Macchiaioli”, great attention is devoted to the Neapolitan school, focusing on the “Resina School” variant, with De Gregorio, Rossano and the Apulian Toma, all livened up by the contribution of the Tuscan Cecioni and the Apulian De Nittis.

At this stage it is important to stress how, within Italian Impressionism itself, a figure such as that of De Nittis will acquire special value thanks to the works accomplished by him in Italy, before moving to Paris and becoming a member of official Impressionism, a situation which will repeat itself with both Zandomeneghi from Venice and Boldini from Ferrara. Let us now come to Veneto.

Here, in addition to Zandomeneghi, Venice stands out thanks to Guglielmo Ciardi’s excellent lagoon visions. Great interest is also devoted to the Piedmont and Liguria perspective offered through the contribution of Pittara, Avendo, D’Andrade, Delleani and Reycend; and even greater attention is devoted to the Lombard output, numbering the production of very famous Scapigliati artists, such as Cremona and Ranzoni, of extremely sensitive artists such as Bianchi and Gignous, and Carcano’s relaxed and resolute works. How could we not be impressed by the meteorological landscapes by Mosé Bianchi (1840-1904), with the young shepherdesses, the washerwomen and poultry gag gles? We also find these landscapes in the Padana Valley water courses and in the sea expanses full of humidity, creating a continuous circulation of water from the sky to the sea.

Very perceptible is the underwood environment depicted by the young Eugenio Gignous (1850-1906), and Carcano’s masterpiece entitled “La piccola fioraia” (The Young Flower Girl). There are further absolutely superb instances on show, almost entering an evocative infinite, offered by Mancini, Michetti and Faretto. Michetti is the great artist from Abruzzi whom Gabriele D’Annunzio so much admired.

The Italian author wrote about him offering him unconditional support. At this point, we need to take into account that, when John Rewald’s famous text entitled “The History of Impressionism” was published in 1949, Roberto Longhi, the great art historian, wrote on the subject an essay entitled “L’impressionismo e il gusto degli italiani” (Impressionism and Italians’ Taste). Whereas Rewald’s work proves therefore of a “memorialist” nature with regards to impressionists, some kind of “Teano meeting” took place (as Longhi puts it) between macchiaioli and impressionists, a relationship which was also ratified among the critics Vittorio Pica, Ardengo Soffici and Lionello Venturi. Impressionism is certainly a movement that originated in France, but it had a vast impact beyond the country’s borders. In Italy the forerunners have been identified among the artists who had taken part in exhibitions in Paris: Domenico Morelli, Saverio Altamura and Serafino de Tivoli, who had announced that the “macchia” viewed as a conveyor of impressions was the basis of painting.

And besides De Nittis, who was invited by Degas to exhibit with the impressionist group, there were other Italians involved. The colleague Palma Bucarelli herself mentions not only Federico Zandomeneghi, but also Antonio Mancini, as well as Michetti, mentioned above, who “absorbed from it just the part that could match his realistic observation, his particular notion of the shape-colour issues together with his desire for expressive synthesis and power.”; and finally Armando Spadini.

This is a wide-ranging exhibition, broadening the vision of Italian impressionism without emphasising its dependence on the French school, which it still sprung from, even though taking entirely new paths, offering definitely new “regional” contributions; these contributions have not been fully studies yet, but benefit from masterpieces such as “Veduta di Porta Grande” (View of Porta Grande) by De Gregorio, “Arabi che fumano” (Arabs Smoking) (1871) by De Nittis, “Dintorni di Monza” (Neighbourhood of Monza) by Mosè Bianchi, “Ritorno dai campi” (Returning from the Fields) by Guglielmo Ciardi, “Pensierosa” (Reflective) by Tranquillo Cremona, “L’appello dopo la carica” (The Appeal after the Charge) by Giovanni Fattori, “Bosco” (Wood) by Eugenio Gignous, “Sull’aia” (On the Farmyard) by Silvestro Lega, “La lacrima” (The Tear) by Antonio Mancini, “La raccolta delle olive” (The Olive Harvest) by Francesco Paolo Michetti, “Studio di nudo femminile” (Study of a Female Nude) by Daniele Ranzoni, and lastly “I sommozzatori” (The Divers) by Gioacchino Toma, oil on canvas on show at the Lecce Municipal Museum.

Translated by interpres sas