Giovanni Boldini on show at Palazzo Albergati
Bologna continues to host the great exhibitions that in previous years have consecrated it as the capital of culture. The protagonist of the exhibition at Palazzo Albergati is Giovanni Boldini, an artist who knew how to depict Parisian femininity and worldliness with extreme delicacy.
His artistic career began in Emilia Romagna, where he was born in Ferrara in 1842, and ended in the heart of the French capital where, thanks to his talent, he succeeded in capturing and describing, with his brushes, the elegance of the salons of high society at the end of the 19th century.
Curated by Tiziano Panconi, the exhibition is entitled “Lo Sguardo nell’Anima” (“The Look in the Soul”) because that is precisely the aim of the works of this refined artist: to succeed in painting female beauty by revealing its soul. His women are the representatives of a period that will go down in history as the Belle Epoque, pioneers of an evolution that will open the way to social conquests without renouncing the allure and elegance of a unique era.
It was a society in ferment, the one that moved around the intellectual French salons, as the over ninety works on display at Palazzo Albergati testify. Observing the masterpieces, it is possible to immerse oneself not only in the atmospheres of the time but also to admire the evolution of fashion which, in those very years, in Paris, was beginning a real revolution: breaking the rules of custom, becoming bold, sometimes frivolous but always and in any case the expression of a decisive identity of thought.
“Boldini is a personality who has a sense of the present, of the hic et nunc, of the chronicle, of the worldly chronicle, of the world of worldly divines, like no-one else!” is how Manuela Teatini, director of the documentary film dedicated to him, Il Piacere – Story of the Artist, describes him, continuing “He represents the world of present beauties who become deities, but they are women, who ask Boldini for portraits through which they deify themselves“.
Boldini’s love of femininity, life and art endured throughout his life, even in his last years marked by blindness, demonstrating that painting is an unstoppable creative impulse. Vittorio Sgarbi is a prominent figure in this celebratory exhibition, ninety years after the master’s death. The art critic, already a host in Galleria Cavour during the presentation of the Farini 14 fragrance, returns to immerse himself in the world of painting as chairman of the study committee appointed by the Municipality of Ferrara and the Ferrara Arte Foundation, also editing the preface to the exhibition catalogue.
Palazzo Albergati is located in via Saragozza, one of Bologna’s central streets: it can be reached on foot from our shops by crossing piazza San Domenico and the Collegio di Spagna. Giovanni Boldini – Lo Sguardo nell’Anima is open until 13 March 2022.