Over 100 artworks on display, spanning from the 1910s to the 1950s
Palazzo Reale hosts an exhibition of Felice Casorati (1883 - 1963), featuring over one hundred artworks divided into fourteen sections, covering a time span from the 1910s to the 1950s.
A dedicated student of Piero della Francesca and Sandro Botticelli, Casorati masterfully reinterpreted their art through a modern lens: he offers a vision of beauty that is at once classical and unsettling, stripped of mystical elements and rendered with a strongly pagan spirit.
Scholar of Piero della Francesca and Sandro Botticelli, he reinterprets their work in a modern key
Among the artworks on view is the early painting Le Signorine dated 1912, clearly referencing Botticelli’s Primavera but also echoing the atmosphere of Gustav Klimt. The artist described it as: “Four aligned figures, four symbols, four realities along with a commentary of things and colors.” It depicts four women standing before a backdrop of trees, each very different from the others (or perhaps representing the same woman at different stages of life). Their names appear at their feet: on the far right, Gioconda smiles happily and contentedly; next to her is Bianca, completely nude, embodying pure youthfulness; she is followed by Violante, anxious and troubled; and finally on the left, Dolores, dressed in dark clothing, seemingly in mourning.
A leading figure of Magic Realism (a term coined by Franz Roh), Casorati once said of himself: “I wish I could express the sweetness of capturing on canvas the ecstatic and still souls, the motionless and silent things, the lingering gazes, the deep and lucid thoughts.”
Also on display: The Young Ladies (1912) and Midday (1923)
Indeed, whether portraying frontal portraits or nudes, he manages to transcend the cold detachment of certain metaphysical painting, achieving the promised sense of ecstasy. This is especially true in Meriggio dated 1923, where in a careful balance of filled and empty space, two fully nude friends lie on a green sheet, bathed in warm light from the left. Between them, ironically, are a pair of red loafers and a priest’s hat placed on the ground; in the background, behind soft white curtains, sits a third, nude male figure, seen from behind, possibly reading in the drowsy midday heat.
The portraits of industrialist Riccardo Gualino and his wife Cesarina Gurgo Salice (1922), both art collectors, recall the influence of Antonello da Messina: Casorati, seeking to explore the subjects’ personalities, portrays them resting on a surface (or balustrade) in the style of 15th-century portraiture, with symbolic objects (in this case, open books) that hint at their character and temperament. The result is an aesthetic that combines strict formalism with a conscious modernity.
He captures on canvases still and silent things, lingering gazes, deep thoughts
Felice Casorati
Casorati
Milan
Palazzo Reale
Curated by
Giorgina Bertolino
Fernando Mazzocca
Francesco Poli
Catalog
Marsilio Arte
Until 29/06
