[Yasmin_announcements] Art and Illusions

[Pier Luigi Capucci]

Promoted and produced by: Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Ministero per i  
Beni e le Attività Culturali, Soprintendenza PSAE e per il Polo  
Museale della città di Firenze, Opificio delle Pietre Dure di Firenze.
Curator: Annamaria Giusti

 From ancient Greco-Roman mosaics and frescoes to European  
masterpieces of the 1300s to today, two hundred works from Italian and  
international museums and private collections tell the intriguing and  
spectacular history of trompe-l’oeil.

The art of deceiving the eye. The theme of deception, illusion, and  
the eternal tension between fiction and reality is shown not only in  
painting, but in the richness it has always enjoyed: sculpture,  
intarsia, scagliola, pietre dure, porcelain, etc. Examples exhibited  
include faux armoirs, half-open, with books inside, wood intarsia of  
small Renaissance studios, scagliola tabletops and stones portraying  
seemingly prehensile objects, soup tureens and table furnishings in  
the shape of vegetables, anatomical and botanical wax models.

The exhibit also dedicates a significant amount of space to wall  
decorations and interiors (detached frescoes from Ancient Rome, where  
the theme of deception gave life to a school) and to Flemish artists  
and their innovations in the trompe-l’oeil genre.Among the many  
curious pieces is the famous cabinet called Scarabattolo (from the  
Opificio delle Pietre Dure), a painting of the late 1600s, by the  
Flemish artist Domenico Remps, that shows a collection of natural and  
artistic objects from the Medici family. Masterpieces by Mantegna,  
Titian and Veronese will induce the visitor to reflect on the  
duplicity with which spatial interaction is depicted in painting,  
whilst the 17th century works of Jean-François de la Motte, and the  
still lifes of the 19th American realists will allow the visitor to  
explore subjects frequently encountered in optically deceptive  
painting, such as hanging letters or panels with papers alongside  
other objects on them, or the motif of hunting trophies and of various  
objects hanging on doors and panels.

In addition, works by American artists specializing in trompe-l’œil  
such as Peto, Kaye, Harnett and Haberle will be on display in Europe  
for the very first time.


Firenze, Palazzo Strozzi, Piazza Strozzi
16 Ottobre 2009 - 24 Gennaio 2010 October 16, 2009 - January 24, 2010

Opening times
Daily 9,00 - 20,00
Thursday 9,00 - 23,00
23 and 31 december  9,00 - 23,00

Last admission one hour before closing

Informations
tel. +39 055 2645155
Bookings

Sigma CSC
tel. +39 055 2469600
fax +39 055 244145
prenotazioni at cscsigma.it

Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi - p.zza Strozzi 50123 Firenze
tel +39 055 2776461/06

--
Pier Luigi Capucci
e-mail: plc at noemalab.org
web: http://www.noemalab.org/plc/plc.html
skype: plcapucci