Tornabuoni Art gallery is delighted to present\u00a0Esprit de g\u00e9om\u00e9trie en Italie 1940-1960<\/em>, an exhibition focusing on a particularly important and often forgotten phase of post-war Italian art: the transition from figuration to abstraction.<\/p>\n

While since 2009, Tornabuoni Art has been known to the French public for its exhibitions celebrating the icons of 20th-century Italian art, such as Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti and Alberto Burri, with this exhibition project the gallery renews its commitment to promoting the Italian artistic panorama beyond movements now well established in the common imagination, such as Spatialism and Arte Povera.<\/p>\n

Through a selection of major works by seven artists, Alberto Magnelli (1888 \u2013 1971), Gualtiero Nativi (1921 \u2013 1999), Mario Nigro (1917 \u2013 1992), Achille Perilli (1927 \u2013 2021), Enrico Prampolini (1894 \u2013 1956), Mauro Reggiani (1897 \u2013 1980) and Luigi Veronesi (1908 \u2013 1998),\u00a0Esprit de g\u00e9om\u00e9trie en Italie 1940-1960\u00a0<\/em>analyzes the gradual establishment of abstraction in Italy.<\/p>\n

The exhibition focuses on fundamental and transformative decades for Italian painting. Enriched by the Futurist experience and the research of Vassili Kandinsky and the Bauhaus, artists began to form groups in the various poles of artistic creation \u2013 Forma 1 in Rome (Achille Perilli) and the Movimento Arte Concreta in Milan (Mario Nigro, Mauro Reggiani, Luigi Veronesi). They rejected traditional figurative painting in favor of a more experimental style based on simple forms, geometry and color.<\/p>\n

Of all the galleries in the Tornabuoni group, it is the Parisian gallery of Tornabuoni Art that serves as the setting for this exhibition, an echo of the links, ever more strongly recognized, of these Italian artists with the Paris art scene. Indeed, most of these artists travel to Paris, where they spend formative periods of varying length, encountering the work of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and the Abstraction-Cr\u00e9ation group.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”bouton-contenu-supplementaire”]Read more[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text el_class=”contenu-supplementaire”]This exhibition is based on research into fundamental decades in Italian painting, and takes its title Esprit de g\u00e9om\u00e9trie <\/em>from the writings of Blaise Pascal. Italian post-war art is nourished by a constant inner tension between rationality and passion, between geometric spirit and the instinct to seek transcendence. In this sense, it is a plastic representation of the dilemma posed by Pascal; the pictorial challenge posed by this apparent dualism underpins the artistic research of many of the protagonists of the revolution that began with Futurism.
\nIn defining the transition from the figurative to the non-figurative, Enrico Crispolti highlights \u00abthree great seasons of research: the first through the various phases of Futurism\u2019s long creative vicissitude, between the 1910s and the early 1940s; the second, in the formulation of a \u2018\u2019concrete\u2019\u2019 abstraction, in the mid-1930s, with renewals in the second half of the 1940s and developments throughout the 1950s and beyond; the third in the sphere of proposals relating to informalism, at the end of the 1940s and into the 1950s.\u00bb
\nIn Enrico Prampolini\u2019s works, such as Cassandra<\/em> (1945), the only one where we still find a form of figuration, we perceive the influence of Cubism. Prampolini refers to these theories through the simpli- fication of female body shapes and the thick lines that mark their contours. These works foreshadow Prampolini\u2019s move towards abstraction.
\nTen years later, in Mauro Reggiani\u2019s Composizione n\u00b04<\/em> (1954) and Composizione<\/em> (1956), no figures or objects are represented. Drawing on the lessons of Vassili Kandinsky and inspired by the rural landscapes surrounding his native village of Nonantola, Reggiani set about schematizing geometric forms, working on perspective and depth through a multiplication of chromatic nuances.
\nThis same schematization can be found in Alberto Magnelli\u2019s work after the Second World War. Pr\u00e9sence profil\u00e9e – La ferrage <\/em>(1956) and Conception dirig\u00e9e – La ferrage <\/em>(1968) are two works that refer to the farm in the south of France where the artist took refuge during the conflict, accompanied by his wife and Jean and Sophie Taeuber Arp. In comparison with Reggiani\u2019s works, the chromatic choices are more subtle. Beiges, grays and whites are articulated on flat surfaces in the \u201850s, then evolve into a search for depth in the \u201860s.
\nThis same profile of nuances is also to be found in Achille Perilli\u2019s paintings, where the influence of his Parisian encounters comes to the fore. Indeed, the black lines that trace the blue, grey and brown rectangles of Oggi, oggi, oggi <\/em>(1955) pay homage to the teachings of Cubism and the desire to deconstruct pictorial spaces.
\nIn Mario Nigro\u2019s work, lines are the protagonists for their ability to define space and time. The artist experimented with bright colors, as in Distruzione<\/em> (1956), where he played with optical effects and vibrations through two different vanishing points. At the end of the \u201860s, Nigro\u2019s paintings were emptied of all color, and his fine black lines developed on white monochrome backgrounds, L\u2019invasione <\/em>(1969).
\nThis idea of the white background is also present in the works of Gualtiero Nativi, who for two decades superimposed different shades of solid color one on top of the other in search of movement, recalling both Futurist and Bauhaus theories. The forms created by Nativi are complex, as in Forma chiusa <\/em>(1964) and Scontro<\/em> (1965), and are articulated in large formats.
\nFor artists of this generation, the experimental aspect develops through different approaches to abstraction, but also in the materials used. Luigi Veronesi bears witness to this with Legno colorato<\/em> (1977), a colored wood collage in which shapes and colors are obtained from wood in its natural or treated state.
\nThrough the exhibition Esprit de g\u00e9om\u00e9trie en Italie 1940-1960<\/em>, the Tornabuoni Art gallery offers a rediscovery of the protagonists of Italian abstraction in the 40s and 60s through the prism of each artist\u2019s French experience.
\nThe exhibition focuses on the fundamental steps that enabled the artist to move beyond figuration towards abstraction. Alongside internationally renowned artists whose work has been exhibited at MoMA or the Centre Pompidou, such as Alberto Magnelli, the exhibition features other artists who have won critical acclaim in Italy and whom Tornabuoni Art, in keeping with its tradition of promoting Italian art, wishes to make more familiar to the French public.[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner disable_element=”yes” preset=”preset_3″ content_preset=”_preset_3″ el_class=”video-mostre”][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1575889020947{padding-top: 50px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;}” el_id=”video”]<\/p>\n

video<\/h2>\n

 
\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”ids” element_width=”6″ item=”1469″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1701172791619-ecf7c9fa-df6c-8″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner disable_element=”yes” preset=”preset_4″ content_preset=”_preset_4″ el_class=”blocco-pubblicazioni-mostre”][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1568023309353{padding-top: 50px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;}” el_id=”publication”]<\/p>\n

publications<\/h2>\n

 
\n[\/vc_column_text][vc_basic_grid post_type=”ids” element_width=”12″ item=”4344″ grid_id=”vc_gid:1701172791620-8f948dae-0a14-6″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1690033553023{padding-top: 50px !important;padding-bottom: 10px !important;}”]<\/p>\n

selection of works<\/h2>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner preset=”preset_4″ content_preset=”_preset_4″][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”54259″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690033773050{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”54268″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690033921635{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”54280″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690034118264{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”54262″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690033818333{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”54271″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690033969179{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”54277″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690034067333{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”54265″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690033868675{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”54283″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690034166269{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][vc_single_image image=”54274″ img_size=”full” add_caption=”yes” onclick=”link_image” css_animation=”fadeIn” el_class=”opere-mostre” css=”.vc_custom_1690034016690{margin-bottom: 35px !important;padding-bottom: 35px !important;}”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”100px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1577099898580{margin-top: 100px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1\/4″ enable_sticky=”true” sticky_offset=”150″ alignment=”center” css=”.vc_custom_1547464395638{margin-bottom: 50px !important;}”][vc_column_text] << back to exhibitions   [\/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading source=”post_title” font_container=”tag:h1|font_size:30px|text_align:center|line_height:30px” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1547225178042{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":54237,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","typology":[184],"class_list":["post-54037","exhibitions","type-exhibitions","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","typology-past"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n