Exhibitions: Royal Palace of Caserta, Italian gardens from the Renaissance to the 800th century. Over 150 works including paintings, drawings, sculptures, tapestries, herbals, books and art objects.
A kaleidoscope of representations, from the Renaissance to the early nineteenth century that cross and interest the entire peninsula in the diversity of landscapes, cultural models and lifestyles. Over one hundred and fifty works including paintings, drawings, sculptures, tapestries, herbals, books and art objects and contemporary interpretations in dialogue with each other to tell the story of the garden over the centuries.
This is the exhibition 'Fragments of Paradise. Gardens over time at the Royal Palace of Caserta', curated by the director Tiziana Maffei, and by Alberta Campitelli and Alessandro Cremona, which will be hosted at the Royal Palace of Caserta from July 16st to October XNUMXth. The seven themes that make up the exhibition unfold along the large rooms of the Queen's Apartment, overlooking the Royal Park with its scenic waterway.
The sections present numerous works, many of which are unpublished, from prestigious Italian and European museums and institutions, including the Prado and Thyssen-Bornemisza museums in Madrid, and Versailles, Capodimonte, the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, the Uffizi Gallery and Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Museum of Rome, as well as private collections, libraries and other public institutions.
The opening section of the exhibition 'The Gardens of Caserta' is dedicated to the Park of the Royal Palace, its components, and its protagonists. In 'The Garden in Italy in its Relationship with the Landscape', instead, the protagonists are the views of famous gardens that range from Campania to Lazio, Marche, Tuscany and Piedmont. The third section 'Gardens as Scenography' describes how the display of power, celebrations and theatre have always had gardens as their privileged backdrop.
In 'The Garden and the Water' suggestive sea, lake and river views are exhibited in which water is the protagonist. The section 'Garden and the Wild', instead, exalts woods and estates as a complement to the villas and gardens, from the tradition of the Medici gardens up to the nineteenth century.
While 'Gardens and Botany' sees the plant element as the protagonist, with different roles and functions. In the last section, 'Gardens and symbolic representation', these places become settings for sacred and mythological narratives, from the depiction of Christ the "gardener" to mythological or literary episodes, up to the allegories of the seasons, such as those of Pietro and Gianlorenzo Bernini.
“The exhibition – explains the director of the Vanvitellian palace, Tiziana Maffei during the presentation – is the result of an in-depth study on the meaning that the natural heritage created by man has had and can have.
Magical places, physical representations of cultural visions, imaginary or imagined Edens, are an expression of how, over time, the various clients and the artists they commissioned have intended to represent their own vision of the world”.
“The setting - keep it going - It is not a coincidence: it involves the first three reception rooms of the Queen's Apartment, rooms whose decorative apparatus was never completed and which were recently returned to the Museum, which offer a splendid view of the scenic Waterway of the Royal Park. Intentionally, in the unfolding of the seven narrative units into which the exhibition is divided, the visible and constant reference is the frame of the Park”.
"The target – concludes the director – The aim of the museum institute is twofold: to disseminate the ethical values of beauty to the general public, with the hope that, after decades of indifference, the culture of garden art, once much more widespread, will be recovered, and to offer professionals the multiplicity of narrative readings of these extraordinary microcosms produced over time by different civilizations”.
Article published on 30 June 2022 - 16:32
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