Sensation, interest, beauty and importance have lead the organizers of the exhibition L’IMPRESSIONISMO E L’ETA’ DI VAN GOGH - Impressionism and the age of Van Gogh, held in the Casa dei Carraresi, Treviso, to postpone its closing date to April 13, 2003.

Treviso, an ancient river town, is involved in this highly prestigious event, which is a counter-attraction to the other Italian exhibition dedicated to “Italian impressionists” - we discussed it in former issues of our magazine.
The exhibition retraces the period between the first impressionist exhibition in 1874 to the last one in 1886, which already marked a change in the trend’s poetics with the essential presence of Seurat and Signac.

It then stretches to 1890, the year Van Gogh died, which acts as a divide between the former world and the new one.

The exhibition then moves on to the turn of the century and the final confirmation of what those wonderful fifteen years in French art sowed in Europe and in the United States, not failing to highlight the presence of the great sculptor Auguste Rodin.
About 160 works from every part of the world - as the exhibition’s subheading says, they seem to give evidence of the wealth brought about by the technical and poetic revolution of a new art.
These five sections studied to facilitate visitors’ understanding are a unique occasion for the Italian public.

The introductory section, the first one, presents all the famous names that contributed to the success of the so-called Nouvelle peinture, whose ‘birth certificate’ was the April 1874 exhibition held in the famous photographer Nadar’s studio in Paris. It marked the beginning of a story that was to revolutionize the course of modern painting from its very foundations.
This first section faces the plein air issue, highlighting the dialogue between Boudin and Monet’s masterpieces. Monet’s 1874 works painted in Argenteuil, on display, mark an essential result in capturing every subject’s atmosphere.
The landscape theme is one of the cornerstones of this chapter with works by Sisley, Pissarro, Cézanne, Guillaumin, and Berthe Morisot’s views of the Isle of Wight.
There are also two very rare paintings by a Gauguin not yet turned thirty, including his masterpiece The Apple Trees (Hermitage). We can also admire the great triptych by Gustave Caillebotte dedicated to the banks of the river Yerres, never admired as a whole since the exhibition held at the Grand Palais, Paris, ten years ago.
The portrait painting by Manet, Degas and especially Renoir is also highly interesting.

The second section (1880-1883) presents all the artists already introduced in the previous one following the idea of a growing perspective for some, and celebrating certain pictorial models in others. Let it not slip our attention that Renoir’s success in the late 1870s lead impressionist’s to question some of their certainties. Suffice to recall Cézanne’s bitter criticism - he pointed out that the right solution did not lie in colour itself but in ‘constructing’ with colour. Monet, Cézanne, Gauguin and Degas began that novelty-filled period. The masterpieces exhibited number the best product of Degas’ sculpture, the Little fourteen year-old dancer - displayed in the 1881 impressionist exhibition, it is another noticeable loan in Treviso. Moreover, collaboration with the Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, Albi, has brought thirteen works by the great French painter – they are related to a ten-year period, the ‘80s, which certainly marked a beginning for him and brought him in contact with certain impressionists.

The exhibition’s third section (1884-1890) presents impressionism at its peak and drawing to a close with a reversal in experiences that will also influence Van Gogh when he sets foot in Paris. Seurat and Signac’s works well record this change and so do those of other protagonists, with the arrival on the scene of new groups such as Gauguin, Bernard and Sérusier.
The extraordinary wall that displays the red paintings Paul Cézanne dedicated to his wife and the splendid still life called The kitchen table (Orsay Museum) shines like a star in this section.

The exhibition’s fourth section is entirely dedicated to Rodin. The homonymous museum sent ten sculptures and the masterpiece Burgher’s of Calais stands out among these. It had already been displayed at the famous Monet-Rodin exhibition held in the Georges Petit gallery in 1889. Rodin has since been considered the greatest 19th century sculptor and the only one who can be defined impressionist.
Rodin’s works in bronze, plaster and marble that date back to those fateful ‘80s are quite striking. His small preparatory studies too are not lacking in intensity.

The exhibition’s fifth and final section is dedicated to Van Gogh – it presents 50 works numbering paintings and drawings from his early works in Holland to the heart of his career in France.
The avenue of poplars in autumn (Van Gogh Museum) marks his Dutch beginnings while the two versions of Restaurant de la Sirène and three period self-portraits painted in Arles, Saint-Rémy and Auvers, where Van Gogh spent the last weeks of his life, represent the Parisian period. This explosion of colour is an X-ray of an artist who was unique in his genre just at the close of one century and the dawn of another. (trasl.by Interpres)