Jewels of the Uffizi take Chinese tour
(ANSA) - Florence, March 5 - Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi, Titian's Venus and Cupid with Partridge and Tintoretto's Leda and the Swan are among the Uffizi Gallery jewels due to set off on an 18-month tour of China this month. Over 80 works spanning five centuries of Italian art history will travel around the country, starting with an exhibition at the Shanghai Museum before moving on to Shenyang, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Beijing. ''The long voyage of these paintings is like a Florentine and Italian delegation to this noble country, so rich in traditions, and a pledge of intense cultural and human exchanges in the future," said Florentine Museums Chief Cristina Acidini. While most of the 50 artists whose work will be on display are from Italy, the tour includes a number of paintings by Flemish, French and Spanish artists in the Uffizi's collection. "It's a wide chronological arc and a huge and varied choice of artists and styles to offer visitors a look at art and culture from the old continent up to the contemporary period," said Uffizi Director Antonio Natali, who is curating the tour. He added that the paintings had been selected to provide a unique opportunity for the Chinese public to admire works by the great masters of European art without depriving visitors to the Uffizi itself. "The paintings that will leave Florence, while of high artistic value, are all preserved in places outside the circuit of the rooms open to the everyday public," Natali said. As part of collaboration fostered by the show, China will donate 100,000 euros to restore Uffizi art works, he added. The exhibition has been divided into three sections, with the first focusing on landscape paintings from the 15th to the 20th centuries.
In addition to Botticelli and Titian, highlights include The Tower at Marghera from 18th-century Venetian landscape master Canaletto, as well as a 1942 aerial view of trees bending in the wind by leading Futurist artist Giacomo Balla. Still life paintings from over two centuries feature in the show's second section, with portraits of fruit and flowers accompanied by numerous animal images, from fish and butterflies to snakes and parrots.
Several works give visitors a peek into Italian 17th century pantries, including Jacopo da Empoli's painting of a larder full of strung-up poultry, racks of ribs, a pig's head and a lone trotter. The final section features portraits and self-portraits from an Uffizi collection begun by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici in the 17th century and continuing to the present day. While many of the works featured draw on the collection's nucleus of 15th- and 16th-century paintings, a handful of more modern works round off the show, including self-portraits by Giulio Aristide Sartorio and Balla. The section also includes the only work on the tour from outside Europe - a self-portrait by Columbian Art Deco artist Sergio Trujillo Magnenat, who died in 1999. From The Collections of the Uffizi Gallery.
The Genres of Painting: Landscape, Still Life and Portrait Paintings runs at the Shanghai Museum from March 10-June 6 before continuing its tour of China until August 2011. photo: Titian's Venus and Cupid with Partridge
In addition to Botticelli and Titian, highlights include The Tower at Marghera from 18th-century Venetian landscape master Canaletto, as well as a 1942 aerial view of trees bending in the wind by leading Futurist artist Giacomo Balla. Still life paintings from over two centuries feature in the show's second section, with portraits of fruit and flowers accompanied by numerous animal images, from fish and butterflies to snakes and parrots.
Several works give visitors a peek into Italian 17th century pantries, including Jacopo da Empoli's painting of a larder full of strung-up poultry, racks of ribs, a pig's head and a lone trotter. The final section features portraits and self-portraits from an Uffizi collection begun by Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici in the 17th century and continuing to the present day. While many of the works featured draw on the collection's nucleus of 15th- and 16th-century paintings, a handful of more modern works round off the show, including self-portraits by Giulio Aristide Sartorio and Balla. The section also includes the only work on the tour from outside Europe - a self-portrait by Columbian Art Deco artist Sergio Trujillo Magnenat, who died in 1999. From The Collections of the Uffizi Gallery.
The Genres of Painting: Landscape, Still Life and Portrait Paintings runs at the Shanghai Museum from March 10-June 6 before continuing its tour of China until August 2011. photo: Titian's Venus and Cupid with Partridge