A new exhibition in this northern Italian city looks at how English artist Joseph Mallord William Turner paved the way for Impressionism.
'Turner e gli Impressionisti' (Turner and the Impressionists), opens at Brescia's Santa Giulia Museum on Saturday and runs until March 25. It features 35 paintings by Turner and 150 more by the Impressionist masters he influenced, like Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Paul Cezanne, Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.
The show also looks at the importance Turner's compatriot John Constable (1776-1837) had for the more realistic landscape art of 19th-century French painters such as Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau and Jean-François Millet.
The works on display have been loaned by 95 different international art institutions, including the Tate Gallery of London, Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum and the Louvre of Paris. Many have never been shown in Italy before. "It is the most beautiful and important exhibition we have ever held," said curator Marco Goldin, whose recent shows on Monet and Van Gogh-Gauguin attracted over one million visitors to Brescia.
Goldin explained that Turner and Constable, both Romantics with a strong attachment to nature, made Impressionism possible by elevating the importance of landscape art. "Before them landscapes were little more than backdrops to put mythological stories in," he said.
The Constable paintings include a magnificent View of Salisbury (1820) from the Louvre and a stirring cloud study produced in 1821. But pride of place goes to Turner (1775-1851). It was his ability to capture the movement and light of a natural scene, as well as the impact this has on the emotions, that showed the Impressionists the way forward.
One of the highlights is his Sun Setting Over A Lake (1840) with its barely discernible snowy Alpine peaks. Another is The Morning after the Wreck (circa 1835) - an example of Turner at his most daring. The impact of these works was especially strong on Monet. This is perhaps most clearly illustrated in his gritty depiction of industrial London - Waterloo Bridge, Cloudy Weather (1903).
In total 45 Monets are on display, including Poplars on the Epte (1891), part of his celebrated series of poplar paintings made in 1891 in the French town of Giverny, and a colourful portrayal of the façade of Rouen Cathedral (1894). Other striking works are Van Gogh's Willow at Sunset (1888), Cezanne's Turn in the Road (1881) and Pissarro's Kitchen Gardens at L'Hermitage, Pontoise (1874).
Over 150,000 people have already booked tickets to see the show, which will be flanked by an exhibition on Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).
Mondrian, a lead member of the De Stijl art movement, constructed pictures out of the simplest elements - straight lines and primary colours.
This exhibit will feature some 80 works - most of which were loaned by the Gemeentemuseum of The Hague - spanning the whole of the Dutch modern artist's career.
