LIGHT MODE
DARK MODE
When evening has come, I return to my house and go into my study. At the door I take off my clothes of the day, covered with mud and mire, and I put on my regal and courtly garments; and decently reclothed, I enter the ancient courts of
Before being installed in the Vasari Corridor, a recent addition to the Uffizi’s unrivalled collection of artists’ self-portraits is about to go on view at San Pier Scheraggio, the former church enclosed within Palazzo Vecchio. The subject of the work is American video artist Bill Viola,
Although Florence is a cultural capital with few equals on the planet, its immense historical legacy has tended to overshadow the place that contemporary art occupies in the city. Yet as recently as the 1960s and 70s, Florence was acknowledged as an avant-garde centre for visual arts and architecture
I first encountered Lolita Valderrama Savage through a painting in the dining room of an art collector whose assemblage included Matisses and Picassos. I was both surprised and pleased to discover that the artist was Filipina. After my first encounter with Valderrama Savage’s painting, I was fortunate to
Italy is confronting the impact of migration. Although less than 9 percent of its population was born outside the country (below the average for European Union member states), immigration has risen dramatically since 2001 and poses questions about national borders as populations move in search of prosperity and security. The
There was a raging Twitter debate recently about the magnetizing force of the Impressionists: can there be too much of a good thing? Does the world really need another Impressionists exhibition? Though an affirmative case for both could certainly be made, it seems that the collective interest in the most
Palazzo Strozzi’s exhibition The Russian Avant-garde: Siberia and the East, which opened on September 27, successfully shows the synthesis of the indigenous and the exotic, examining all the elements that went into the works of Russian modernists while simultaneously highlighting the shamanistic roots that are unique to
A small exhibit at Villa Bardini, Il Rinascimento da Firenze a Parigi: Andata e ritorno, is worth the hike up Costa San Giorgio. Thirty works that now form the Italian nucleus of the Jacquemart-André museum in Paris were sold to Nélie Jacquemart at the end of
Prato is currently celebrating its illustrious artistic history through an extensive exhibit, From Donatello to Lippi: Officina Pratese, uniting spaces around the city in a modern museum collaboration that parallels the artistic contamination between Renaissance workshops. Paintings, sculpture, textiles and documents tell the story of a city that was central,
The newly opened exhibit at Villa Bardini brings 30 works that were sold by the antiquarian Stefano Bardini in the 19th century back from the Paris museum that now houses them, offering an opportunity to see Renaissance paintings that don't travel often. It's set up in the idyllic
In the late 19th century, part of the orientalising trend that overtook much of Europe was a ‘discovery’ of all things related to India. Through two expeditions led by figures connected to the current University of Florence (then called the Istituto di Studi Superiori di Firenze), the city
Did you know that wine from Montalcino (the name Brunello was invented much later) was first served at Buckingham Palace in 1696? And that it boasts many firsts in Italy, including the first Italian wine scandal? Perhaps, like most people, you don’t. Which is why it is worth
An early morning visit to the exhibit The Renaissance Dream at the Palatine Gallery is like returning to a suspended state of sleep for an hour or so. It is truly a joy to experience such a cohesive grouping of works that offer close visual comparisons and suggest literary references.
Beauty is a concept not immediately associated with visual art in the modern era. Although some artists pioneered the sublime detachment of abstraction, others appeared more concerned with the turmoil, grittiness and uncertainty of existence. Indeed, many practitioners may even have regarded the pursuit of beauty as irrelevant, even irresponsible.
Forty years ago this month, I set out from London as a teenager on my ‘grand tour’ that was to take me from art history studies at the British Institute in Florence to an archaeological dig in Herculaneum, via Magic Bus to Marrakesh and the Orient Express to
In the late 1960s, the modern blockbuster art exhibition arrived and changed the museum landscape. Pioneered by such major institutions as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, these ambitious shows combined the art-world equivalents of Cinemascope, Technicolor, surround sound with a touch of Barnum and Bailey promotion.
Palazzo Strozzi’s lastest exhibit, Springtime of the Renaissance, takes on a double challenge: explaining the roots of the Renaissance, topic of extensive historiography, and convincing the crowds to go see a show about sculpture. Sculpture is generally less sexy and less of a crowd-pleaser than painting.
There is no doubting Salvador Dalí’s popularity. His work continues to please, shock and titillate, generating food for thought and queues at the ticket office. The arrival of The Dalí ...
An exhibition of contemporary works at Villa Romana, located on the edge of the city, a mile and several centuries from the Pitti Palace, marks the arrival in Tuscany of four new foreign artists. Villa Romana—Winners 2013 is a collection assembled by this year’s fellows,
A new exhibit at the Museo del Tessuto in Prato looks at the history of vintage fashion, a timely topic in an historic moment in which economic realities and dreams of a happier past have put the phenomenon of vintage clothing and lifestyle into the spotlight. From street fashion
When he left for New York in the early 1980s, Ai Weiwei joked that on his return to China his friends would see a ‘new Picasso'; he has since ceased to make any such claims for himself and has left the job to journalists and curators. Unlike many artists
Bright, bold hues, powerful patterns, decisive lines: the fashion style and designs of Enrico Coveri blasted into the world in the 1970s and continue to enliven and astound to this day. The exhibit Coveri Story, at the new home of the Camera di Commercio in Prato, tells the life and
Italy's Fascist dictatorship never enforced one style on the nation's artists. In the 1930s, therefore, traditional portraiture was practised alongside advanced abstraction in visual art and interior design. In architecture, classicism was revived for official buildings but modern streamlined structures were also built: Florence's main railway station,
The celebrations of Vespucci Year continue with the opening of the exhibit at Palazzo Pitti, New Frontier: History and Culture of the Native Americans from the Collections of The Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Co-organizer Laura Johnson reflects on the title and gives TF a personal glimpse behind the
