One hundred works of art, in the first major exhibition devoted to this Baroque artist and friend of Artemisia Gentileschi, bring the Florentine grand ducal palace back to life after lockdown
Flowers, plants and exotic shells, bizarre insects and animals with expressions bordering on the human: the forms and the poetry of nature take pride of place in the exhibition entitled The Immensity of the Universe in the art of Giovanna Garzoni hosted in the Andito degli Angiolini at the Palazzo Pitti showing until 28 June.
With this substantial retrospective (the first large monographic exhibition devoted to the Baroque female painter from the Marche) the Gallerie degli Uffizi was planning to celebrate a major female figure to mark Women's Day on 8 March 2020. "Hibernated" by the lockdown, however, the exhibition has now become a symbol of the return to normal life after the closure of almost three months occasioned by the COVID-19 epidemic.
The exhibition comprises roughly 100 paintings, illuminations on parchment (Garzoni's favourite support) and drawings, in addition to a large floral altar fontral over 4 metres in length, accompanied by and interacting with period porcelain, ivory pieces and Renaissance bronzes. Imaginative and inquisitive by nature, Garzoni, who was born in Ascoli Piceno in c.1600, considerably expanded her stylistic vocabulary thanks to the remarkable penchant for travel that made her one of the most cultivated and cosmopolitan women painters of her age.
She lived at the courts of Venice and Turin, spent several years with the Medici in Florence, worked in Naples and in France, where she painted a portrait of Cardinal Richelieu (on display in the exhibition), and even frequented the court of King Charles I in England, a fact borne out by documents on show in this exhibition for the very first time.
She was a friend of Artemisia Gentileschi, that other great woman artist of the 17th century, with whom she shared both travel and experiences and who was something of a role model for her in that she was a few years Giovanna's senior. Shrewd in currying favour with her patrons, Garzoni specialised in miniatures on parchment, excelling in particular in the depiction of still-lifes with exotic curios and subjects taken from the plant and animal world. A leading player in the cultural affairs of her age, she rapidly built a reputation for herself and was admired throughout Europe, to the point where she was even portrayed in her old age by Carlo Maratta, the prince of Rome's Accademia di San Luca and future restorer of Raphael's masterpieces.
Giovanna Garzoni was endowed with astonishing intellectual inquisitiveness and originality, which translated into penetrating and stringent observation of the natural world. The vast corpus of her work owned by the Gabinetto Stampe e Disegni degli Uffizi is supplemented in the exhibition by a series of loans from private collections and from Italian and foreign museums illustrating the full creative spectrum of her career.
Of particular interest are her precious floral miniatures with vases in the Chinese style and shells from tropical countries and her still "yet living" lifes with fruit, exotic plants and small animals of all kinds (from insects depicted in their infinite variety to snails, birds and crickets) alongside the exhibition's iconic work, her celebrated English Small Dog portrayed on a table with a Chinese cup and some biscuits.
But Garzoni also expressed her uniquely creative talent in the way she juxtaposed objects and human figures, for instance in the Old Man of Artimino surrounded by the produce of his labours as a farmer (sausages, fruit, eggs and cheeses) and by his farm animals (chickens and a dog). Equally striking is Garzoni's Self-portrait as a young girl in the guise of the god Apollo, which she painted when barely twenty years old, and her unusual miniature of the Ethiopian Prince Zaga Christ, whom she portrayed while at the Court of the House of Savoy in Turin.
And finally, the exhibition could hardly have avoided paying tribute to Raphael (as the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome hosts a major exhibition to mark the 500th anniversary of his death) in the shape of a miniature copy, painted by Garzoni in 1649, of the Madonna della Seggiola which was already a showpiece of the Medici collections in her day and which still hangs in the Galleria Palatina di Palazzo Pitti to this day.
Gallerie degli Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt commented:“Giovanna Garzoni was a woman who often found herself working and painting with and for other women, and these sisterly episodes contributed in part – but always in a positive vein – to her choices and to the results she obtained with her work. But aside from that, Garzoni managed single-handedly, by her own strength and intelligence and by adopting a shrewd policy of self-promotion and astute flexibility in moving about the Italian and European courts of her day, to assert herself and to create an original and deeply poetic style even in the still-life genre then in its infancy.
Recent scholarship and new discoveries meant that the time was ripe for this year's monographic exhibition, which explores the artist's output throughout her artistic career. In this case the exhibition does not focus exclusively on her still-lifes but also includes other works and objects conjuring up those depicted in her paintings, where her vibrant painterly style breathes eternal life into her subjects, be they the elegant figures in her portraits or the wonders of nature. This year's events have meant that it is precisely Garzoni's art that marks the rebirth of the Grand Dukes' palace after a long moment of darkness and silence”.
Exhibition curator Sheila Barker explained “The aim of this exhibition is to showcase Garzoni's astonishing geographical breadth and scope while also illustrating her breathtakingly penetrating artistic vision. Her starting point is always the heart, the fulcrum of people and things, which she then subjects to almost microscopic analysis. In particular, Garzoni focuses her attention on the exotic items in her patrons' collections, organising them in compositions that speak of the growing cosmopolitanism in the life of Europe's courts and the intense circulation of goods throughout the world in this particular historical moment when the globalisation process was taking its first steps”.
The exhibition also plays a leading role in an initiative developed by Advancing Women Artists (AWA), which has chosen it to launch a worldwide challenge to artists and institutions to produce new creations inspired precisely by the art of Giovanna Garzoni (http://advancingwomenartists.org/).
“In creating a challenge dedicated to this exhibition, we hope that the exhibition itself may become a cultural bridge between people of different countries" remarked AWA Director Linda Falcone. "We hope that contemporary artists join in this global conversation on art and that through their work they let us know the extent to which Garzoni's achievements colour their creativity today”.
The exhibition is curated by Sheila Barker in conjunction with the Medici Archives Project; the catalogue is published by Sillabe; the English edition was made possible thanks to a contribution from AWA.
A brief biography of Giovanna Garzoni
Giovanna Garzoni was born in Ascoli Piceno in c.1600 and picked up the technique of oil painting, probably from her uncle Pietro Gaia, in Venice while still a young girl. One of her first commissions was for a painting in a series depicting the Apostles for the church of the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice, a series to which such prestigious masters as Domenico Tintoretto also contributed. At the same time, she trained in the arts of calligraphy and miniature painting whilst also acquiring skills as a singer and a player of string instruments, a talent that she was able to display at the Medici court at the age of 19. At 22 she wed the Venetian portrait artist Tiberio Tinelli, but their marriage failed on account of a vow of chastity which Giovanna had taken to thwart a prophesy predicting that she would die in childbirth.
The marriage came to an end in 1624, with her relatives preparing to testify to Tinelli's use of witchcraft. Heeding her brother's advice to seek her "freedom", Giovanna moved to Naples in 1630, where she took up service with the Duke of Alcalà in the company of Artemisia Gentileschi. Passing through Rome, she attracted the patronage of the Barberini family and was introduced to the Accademia dei Lincei by the scholar Cassiano Dal Pozzo. In 1632 she moved to Turin where she was granted the title of "Miniaturist to Madama Reale”.
On the Duke of Savoy's death in 1637, she travelled, again in Artemisia's company, to the court of King Charles I in London where she made the acquaintaince of Inigo Jones. By late 1639 she was a member of Cardinal Richelieu's entourage in Paris, but from 1642 to 1651 she lived mainly in Florence, working for the Medici and primarily producing miniatures. She finally settled in Rome, where she died in 1670 and was buried in the church of the Accademia di San Luca, the first woman ever to be granted the privilege.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PITTI PALACE
Purchased by Cosimo I de' Medici and his wife Eleonora of Toledo in 1550 in order to transform it into the new grand ducal residence, the Pitti Palace soon came to symbolise the Medici family's consolidated power over Tuscany. Though used as their official residence by the Medici and by two other dynasties, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (the Medicis' successors from 1737) and the House of Savoy who lived there in their capacity as the Royal House of Italy from 1865, the Pitti Palace still bears the name of its first owner, Florentine banker Luca Pitti, who commissioned it in the mid-15th century – possibly to a design by Brunelleschi – at the foot of the hill known as Boboli on the "left bank" of the Arno. It currently houses four different museums: the Tesoro dei Granduchi on the ground floor, the Galleria Palatina and Appartamenti Imperiali e Reali on the piano nobileor first floor, and the Galleria d'Arte Moderna and Museo della Moda e del Costume on the second floor.
The Immensity of the Universe in the art of Giovanna Garzoni
Andito degli Angiolini, Pitti Palace
Florence
Showing until: 28 June
For more information on the exhibition, CLICK HERE
Information for visitors
All the national and regional measures designed to contain the spread of COVID-19 are in force in Palazzo Pitti. Thus no one with a temperature of 37.5°C or over is allowed in (temperatures are taken at the entrance); visitors must wear masks for the duration of their visit; they must stand at least 1.8 mt. from each other and from members of staff; no crowds must be formed; groups cannot comprise more than 10 people; and tour guides must use a whisper system at all times.
The price of admission is unchanged, but opening hours are slightly different in this first phase after reopening. To permit daily sanitisation, Palazzo Pitti will be open from 8.30 am to 1.30 pm, while the Tesoro dei Granduchi and Museo delle Porcellane, where it is impossible to ensure compliance with social distancing measures for architectural and logistical reasons, will remain closed for the time being.