Centuries of beauty

CENTURIES OF BEAUTY

Women in art
November-8 12 2023

A significant title, substantial in its incisiveness and in the proposal of intent: Ars Antiqua will propose an exhibition in November focused on the innovative and transversal rereading of the theme of women in art, highlighting the pluridisciplinarity of the theme and its many, passionate facets. 

Since ancient times, the female universe has been a preferential meeting point for artists and clients, a place of synthesis between the ideal and concreteness, capable of representing the wide range of human life as vividly as possible. The exhibition will be organized respecting some precise thematic areas, embracing the choice of a multidirectional approach, significantly conceptual over the various centuries. It will therefore be a choral vision starting from the symbolism of the Egyptian period, including paintings, sculptures and porcelains, up to the metaphysics of the contemporary through the Renaissance, Baroque, Neoclassicism and Romanticism.  

The first section, dedicated to Holy women, reflects accurately on the most ancient manifestations of the feminine conceived by human hands: those of the divine. In relation to the Christian religion, the Old Testament is populated by multiple female figures endowed with tenacious intelligence and touching empathy: Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca, Esther and Bathsheba intertwine warnings and predictions, hope and determination for the salvation of own people. In the New Testament these wise figures are replaced by the Queen par excellence, Mary, emulated by the Pious Women and Magdalene. Since the first early Christian inspirations, artists crowded every surface with the images of these holy women, to sacralize a place and with the desire to illuminate the path of the faithful. From the mystical sweetness of Holy Family by the well-known Anton Maria Piola, the section will host an unreleased Giovanni Venanzi with Bathsheba and David, an icon-masterpiece of the present exhibition and a published painting, until it delicately encloses the figures of the Virgin Mary and a Magdalene with a Caravaggesque flavour. 

Perfect counterpoint, the section Nude and sensualityinstead aims to investigate the manifestations of the nude over the centuries, starting from the spring of classical beauty, in an exhibition recalled by replicas of Rape of Polyxena and Venus, until the summer of the mannerist and Michelangelo era of Leda with the swan. It is no coincidence that the Elkington manufacture, represented here exemplary by Elkington roundel with Pompeiane bathing, chose for his modern and now emancipated artistic productions an ancient appearance, edifying in the peace of its representation. The same thing happened for the Pauline Bourgeois, implicitly scandalous in the choice of nude, surprising dress for the new nobility. The section dedicated to Mythological, continuum formal than the previous one, it will instead host some cornerstone divinities of Greco-Roman antiquity, such as Apollo, in sketch, in the company of the trusted Muses. The continuous flow shod by these, echoed in the Toilet of Venus and in 'Allegory of sculpture of Moriani, will act as an immediate intermediary for religious virtues, such as the unpublished one Allegory of Faith of Boscarati, through the Suicide of Lucrezia, extreme sacrifice for the most total maintenance of the self.  

The revival of the ancient diatribe between Otium and Negotium, resolves itself once and for all in the inseparable dualism between the two parts: the exhibition will feature paintings and situations in which one is the necessary completion of the other, from Laid table by a Flemish artist active in Veneto, al Arcadian landscape with travellers, shepherds and animals by Nicola Rossi. From the placid calm expressed by the concept of otium, silently recreated with outdoor scenes such as hunts and camps by the famous Piedmontese painter Palanca, we will move on to the alluring elegance of the eighteenth-century interiors, of distinctly Venetian taste. The business shouldered by the paintings with sellers by Boselli and Todeschini will throw the viewer into a touching hymn to reality, weaving a game of unprecedented glances between us and art itself. 

The exhibition will be inaugurated on Wednesday 8 November. Important insights will continue during Ars Antiqua's Sunday live television broadcasts, from 19.00pm to 23.00pm, on channels 126 (digital terrestrial) and 813 (Sky), as well as on the website www.arsantiquasrl.info and on Facebook and YouTube channels. 

Ars Antiqua – www.arsantiquasrl.com

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