"Giovanni Lanfranco A painter in Parma, Rome and Naples (1582 – 1647)"
2001-09-08 until 2001-12-02
Reggia di Colorno
Parma, , IT Italy

From 8th September to 2nd December , the Reggia di Colorno is housing the biggest exhibition ever assembled of works by Giovanni Lanfranco (Parma, 1582 – Rome, 1647), the painter d’ombra e di luce tra la terra e il Cielo (who loved painting shadows and light between earth and heaven), charming the main character of the passage from Caravaggio's style to great baroque painting.

In order to allow such an important artistic event, Neaples and Rome have joined Parma as well. After the exhibition in Parma, Neaples is housing it from 21st December 2001 to 24th February 2002 (Neaples, Castel Sant’Elmo) and Rome from 16th March to 16th June 2002 (Rome, Palazzo Venezia); Parma, Rome and Neaples are actually the main stops in Lanfranco’s artistic route.

The very important loans given by Italian, European and American museums and the restoration works made for this exhibition will enable the audience to discover a real Big of the seventeenth century’s Italian painting, an excellent interpreter of Emilia-Romagna’s inheritance leading to the triumph of Baroque style.

The dimensions of this exhibition (more than one hundred pictures, many of which are very big) have required the addition of new rooms belonging to the ancient ducal apartments to the traditional number of show-rooms. The restoration works and the fresh opening of lounges is a further stimulating element for the ones who want to visit the Reggia di Colorno, as well as Lanfranco’s exhibition.

Within the Reggia’s lounges the tourist will find a crowd of Madonne enlightened by grace, very human saints, sore Martyrs, church Princes dressed in silver and silk, ladies and knights loving each other, classical heros coming from Olymp: flesh, spirit, glory and repentance, suffering and ecstasy, religion and literature painted by an artist who can represent any kind of subject and a crowded, charming group of characters (represented by ravishment and ecstasy, feelings that Lanfranco can express better than any other painter), thanks to the handy and cultivated invention of his talent and to his skillful paintbrush.

IMAGE:
Giovanni Lanfranco
Sant’Agata in carcere
Parma, Galleria Nazionale
Oil on canvas,
100 x132,6 cm

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Italy

Other Important Exhibitions in Italy