Renaissance at the National Gallery of Australia

Giovan Battista Moroni
Bambina della Famiglia Redetti, 1566-70

Next December a new exhibition will be on display at the National Gallery of Australia: "Renaissance: Raphael, Botticelli, Titian, Bellini". 


The works of these artists and other eminent artists executed by Italian artists between the 15th and 16th century will come to Australia for the first time.


These works, now part of the collection of the Accademia Carra, where once own by the merchant and collector Giacomo Carrara, who died in 1796. Until recently the collection was looked after by a Trust, to then pass under the jurisdiction of the city of Bergamo, that amplified the collection, thanks to gifts and donations of other private collectors.


Today in the Collection is possible to count more than 1,800 artworks, including masterworks by Giovanni Bellini, Titian, Botticelli and Raphael.

Titian,
Madonna with Child, 1510

                                                                                     Due to restructuring/maintenance of the Accademia Carrara, around seventy artworks will be borrowed by the National Gallery of Australia and they will be on display for the first time on the Australian sole. 


This occasion will be a wonderful opportunity for art lovers, researchers and public, who will see with their own eyes works that hardly leave Italy due their fragility, value and conservation concern. 


Between the many works, there will also be the "Madonna and Child" by Titian, which will travel so far to come to Australia in December for about 4 months. 


Don't miss this occasion... go and enjoy this event! 



A presto!!
Simona

Michelangelo's Moses: speak!!



Moses by Michelangelo

 Pope Julius II commissioned this project, his tomb, to Michelangelo in 1506, but it was only completed in a later date, between 1542-1545, after many years of desegreement with the Pope's heirs. In fact, the pope wanted his monument to be exemplary and Michelangelo planned a burial chamber that would be a truly architectonic structure, with statues of the old and new testament figures at different levels, but obviously the project was never approved.


The project scale was reduced and the work was never placed in St. Peter's but in San Pietro in Vincoli, not far from Via Cavour, where Julius II was ordinated cardinal.

The statue of the Moses shows his extraordinary force, the tension in the veins and muscles, in the posture and in the furious expression: he can't only speak!! That's why this is considered one of his masterpieces, together with the Sistine Chapel and the David in Florence.

Lorenzo Lotto: a master artist at the Scuderie del Quirinale

Lorenzo Lotto, Annunciation, Pinacoteca Comunale, Recanati

I remember seeing this artwork, the "Annunciation" by Lorenzo Lotto in Melbourne about nine years ago. This work was the cover of the book: "Titian to Tiepolo: Three centuries of Italian Art", an exhibition which traveled around Australia and other continents with a selection of Italian artworks, including Lorenzo Lotto's Annunciation from Recanati.

This year the Scuderie del Quirinale celebrates this artist with a wonderful exhibition: it will consider the whole story of the artist painting, his existential works within the triangle Treviso, Bergamo and some small towns in the Marche by highlighting and enhancing the poetry of a man of the fifteenth century, his successful and  completely original and independent works to reconcile the traditional elements of great painting of his time, anticipating the Baroque era.

Lorenzo, in fact, starting from the suggestions of compositions by Giovanni Bellini, Antonello da Messina, learned to look into the human soul to tell us a story. Just think of those light flashes or the cold way of cutting perspective planes: they are the antithesis of the soft and the merger of coloristic contemporary Giorgione. Its composition is held, instead, according to tight schedules, highlighted by the intertwining of looks and attitudes varied characters, often set in an particular atmosphere but linked by the realism of the details and with a view of nature felt as a mysterious and disturbing. 

A complex human story, then, narrated through a selection of key works, will help the viewer to love Lorenzo Lotto. 

The art exhibition will be at the Scuderie del Quirinale between March 2nd and june 12th. Don't miss it!!

Botticelli in Milan

Lamentation over the Dead Christ by Sandro Botticelli.

From today at the Poldi Pezzoli Museum there is an exhibition on Sandro Botticelli. The exhibition celebrates the 500th anniversary of the death of the great master Botticelli presenting works belonging to pubblic collections from Lombardy and Milan.

For more information have a look to the museum site:

Museo Poldi Pezzoli

Madonna and Child by Jacopo Sansovino

Madonna and Child by Sansovino © Copyright ANSA

For the art lovers this is a wonderful thing happened in Florence in the last few days! Medical technology has helped restore to life a terracotta Madonna and Child by Renaissance sculptor Jacopo Sansovino.
Florence art critics said they did not know exactly when the artwork had been broken and who was responsible for a series of restorations, which ruined it, altering the shape and colour of the piece. 


The work was presented to the media in Florence before its return to the Civic Museum of Vicenza.

Madonna and Child by Sansovino© Copyright ANSA

Jacopo d'Antonio Sansovino (1486-1570) was a sculptor and architect, and best known for his works around St Mark's square in Venice.

Bronzino in Florence

On October 19th I left Rome early in the morning to spend the day in Florence with my dad, where I have enjoyed Bronzino's exhibition at the Palazzo Strozzi in the afternoon after visiting Caravaggio e i Caravaggeschi's exhibition at the Pitti Palace.

The artworks on display were appropriately chosen, the explanations were exhaustive....in Italian and in English....plus the building the exhibition was in I believe it has its own fashion. I would go back!!

An introduction to art history

Moses by Michelangelo in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

Works of art have traditionally been associated with vivid and abiding experiences and memories. Of the various form of arts, painting are usually the most highly privileged.

Sistine Chapel's ceiling by Michelangelo, Rome

Painting provide useful information by virtue of the events and scenes and people that they illustrate. Paintings preserve former layouts of cities and landscapes, the appearance of long-dead kings and queens and philosophers and artists, the configurations of formers battles and the scenes of terrible disasters.

When we stand in front a painting we expect to perceive something ....to understand the artwork we are looking at. The kind of paintings normally commissioned in the principal urban centers of Europe reflected the existing stratifications of the social world at a time when the main sources of patronage were the church, the state, the aristocracy and the increasingly independent mercantile class of bourgeoisie. 

Artists like Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci worked for various type of patrons in different city of Italy creating astonishing and impeccable artworks, which will be introduce during the next Term at new Farm State School Community between October 28th and November 11th.

For any information and to enroll to the course just download the form below:

New Farm State School Community Education

If you have any question just drop me a line!!!
Simona