American Impressionism in Florence is the central theme of a big exhibition that has never be seen in Italy, “Americans in Florence. Sargent and the American Impressionists.”
From 3 March to 15 July 2012 Palazzo Strozzi shows a suggestive portrait of the strong ties linking the New World and the old and sophisticated culture of Europe in the decades spanning the close of the 19th and dawn of the 20th centuries.
In that period Italy was an inescapable pole of attraction for american painters and Florence, in particoular, had been one of the Grand Tour main destinations: the ancient monuments, the colorful landscapes – so different from the countryside back home-, the evocative and atmospheric panoramic views and the picturesque charm of local people attracted extremely the foreign artists. Forerunners such as John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt and James Abbott McNeill Whistler spent time in Italy to embrace the artistic vocabulary of Impressionism and transmitted the “rivolutionary” ideas of Claude Monet and the other impressionist painters to their compatriots back in the United States.
The exhibition includes female portraits of great quality in which women symbolise the modern American nation: young girls dressed in white who personify the purity and hopes of an entire nation. The female portrait theme can be seen as a link with the activity of American women painters and their emancipation compared to the European counterparts.
A great event to welcome the next flowery spring in Florence!
