Lotto, Romanino, Moretto, Ceruti. I campioni della pittura a Brescia e Bergamo

From 21 January to 11 June 2023, Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia will host the masterpieces of the most important masters of art active between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries in Brescia and Bergamo. For the first time, the exhibition Lotto, Romanino, Moretto, Ceruti. The champions of painting in Brescia and Bergamo will bring into dialogue the culture and artistic production expressed by the two cities during the almost four centuries of Venetian domination.

The exhibition, one of the most anticipated of the program for "Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture 2023", curated by Davide Dotti, organized by the Friends of Palazzo Martinengo Association, with the patronage of the Province of Brescia, the Municipality of Brescia, the Municipality of Bergamo, from the Province of Brescia Events Foundation, presents a selection of over eighty masterpieces from both Italian and foreign public and private collections, which will give life to a real cultural and artistic derby: the works of the great Brescian Renaissance masters such as Foppa , Moretto, Romanino, Savoldo and Gambara will be compared with those of Moroni, Palma il Vecchio, Cariani, Previtali and Lotto from Bergamo - who lived and worked for over twelve years in the City of the Thousand - to understand how the common Lombard cultural substratum, enlivened by the innovations proposed by Venetian painters (Bellini and Titian in primis), has given rise to expressive languages in some similar cases, in other antitheticals.

Of extreme interest will then be approaching canvases executed during the fifth decade of the 16th century by Moretto and Moroni who, in those years, was in Brescia in the Bonvicino workshop, from which he assimilated that intense naturalism that characterizes the poetics of the Brescian genius .
The same unprecedented and exciting parallel between the exponents of the two pictorial schools will be proposed in the following rooms dedicated to the theme of "portraiture" - Moroni, Ceresa and Fra Galgario on one side, Bellotti, Cifrondi and Giacomo Ceruti known as il Pitocchetto on the other -, of "Baroque painting", of "still life" - Baschenis and Bettera champions in the City of the Thousand, Rasio and Duranti in that of the Lioness - and of "genre painting" where the protagonists will be the irreverent paintings with dwarfs and pygmies by Bocchi and pupil from Bergamo Albrici, the landscapes of Roncelli and the rustic interiors of farmhouses and taverns of Botti.

The exhibition itinerary will then continue on the noble floor of the historic sixteenth-century residence with a surprising "exhibition within the exhibition", consisting of four insights dedicated to themes characterizing the cultural identity and history of the two cities, where sculptures, drawings, musical instruments will meet , paintings, historical memorabilia, ancient documents and period photographs.
In particular, the figures of the two popes of the 20th century will be investigated, John XXIII from Bergamo and Paul VI from Brescia, and their relationship with art and artists, from Picasso to Chagall, from Matisse to Dalí up to Manzù; gastronomic and musical traditions between the Renaissance and the 20th century; finally, a particular focus will be reserved for the adventure of the great architect Marcello Piacentini, active in the first decades of the twentieth century between Bergamo and Brescia, where he transformed the urban face of the two cities.

The exhibition is the new exhibition appointment of the Friends of Palazzo Martinengo Association which follows the successes of the public and critics obtained with the reviews Il Cibo nell'Arte dal Seicento a Warhol (2015), Lo Splendore di Venezia. Canaletto, Bellotto, Guardi and the 19th century landscape painters (2016), From Hayez to Boldini. Souls and faces of 19th century Italian painting (2017), Picasso, De Chirico, Morandi. One hundred masterpieces from Brescian private collections (2018), Animals in art from the Renaissance to Ceruti (2019), Women in art. From Titian to Boldini (2020-2022), visited by over 300,000 people.... read the rest of the article»