Liberty. A style for modern Italy

The Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì Foundation, in collaboration with the Municipality of Forlì, proposes once again an innovative reading of an extraordinary period in the history of Italian art. After the decisive exhibition dedicated to the twentieth century, it is the season that under the seductive sign of Liberty, otherwise called Art Nouveau in France, Jugendstil in the German and Central European area and Modern Style in the Anglo-Saxon countries, saw the widespread diffusion between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries internationally, a new style and taste intended to overcome the historicism and naturalism that had dominated much of the 19th century.

In the unified Italy, this movement, aimed at overcoming the still too present regional identities, interprets the aspiration to achieve a common national artistic language that is adequate to represent progress and modernity. The dream of a beauty capable of interpreting the world transformed by scientific and technological progress was celebrated by major exhibitions, such as the national one in Palermo in 1891-1892, those of modern decorative art in Turin in 1902, and in Milan in 1906, which celebrated the Simplon tunnel. Similarly, that dream wanted to revive the ancient cultural splendor, re-declining with an all-current sensitivity, defined by the aestheticism and legacy of the English Pre-Raphaelites, a Renaissance identified between Botticelli's sentimental and feminine linearity and Michelangelo's heroic tension. This is why the exhibition intends to identify, for the first time compared to the various exhibitions dedicated to Liberty in the past, the specificities of a style through a series of masterpieces of painting and sculpture, which, albeit by trained, poetic and language artists several, such as Segantini, Previati, Boldini, Sartorio, De Carolis, Longoni, Morbelli, Nomellini, Kienerk, Chini, Casorati, Zecchin, Bistolfi, Canonica, Trentacoste, Andreotti, Baccarini reveal common contents and messages, with which the sections are scanned dedicated to the myth, the allegory, the landscape declined between symbolist tensions and a search for the absolute that will enchant us in front of the paintings dedicated to the representation of glaciers, seen as the image of the "enchanted mountain" by Thomas Mann.

The imPortance given to the major arts, which did not exclude comparisons with foreign models and interlocutors such as Klinger, Klimt, von Stuck, Beardsley, Khnopff, Burne-Jones, wanted to encourage a new dialogue with other techniques and artistic expressions in an identification of those decorative values ​​that are compared with the pictorial and plastic ones in the sections dedicated to graphics, illustration, advertising posters and the infinite manifestations of architecture and applied arts. Thus the wrought iron of Mazzucotelli and Bellotto; the ceramics of Chini, Baccarini, Cambellotti, Spertini, Calzi; the posters of Dudovich, Hohenstein, Boccioni, Terzi, Mataloni, Beltrame, Palanti; the furniture of Zen, Issel, Basile, Bugatti, Fontana; Eleonora Duse's clothes, Aemilia Ars' laces and Zecchin's tapestries live new comparisons. The result is a Liberty figure which is essentially a lifestyle. Its representation is the sinuous, fluctuating line, which reflects in the sign, in its own becoming, the movement in progress. The undisputed protagonist is the woman, a figure at the same time fragile, superb and carnal, an image of pleasure and freedom.

An original exhibition, interwoven with unexpected encounters and relationships, to tell in an engaging way the idea of ​​a total art that triumphed in that season of optimism and unconditional confidence in progress and which goes under the universal name of Belle Époque. As confirmed by the relationships with literature, theater and music, evoked through graphics and illustrated books, but also through the paintings and sculptures themselves, in the artistic experience of Liberty an uneasiness and social and existential malaise that would shortly thereafter manifest themselves tragically. The progressive dream and the magnificent utopia of a beauty that should have changed the world were destined to symbolically break, for the first time, in the Titanic tragedy in 1912 and, definitively, two years later, in the Great War.

Before embracing the avant-garde myths, the Italian bourgeoisie will make the greatest historical attempt to identify its own, unitary language, an epiphany of form, such as to evoke feelings, freedom and beauty, happy days.

The exhibition was conceived and created by the Cassa dei Risparmi di Forlì Foundation in collaboration with the Municipality of Forlì and the San Domenico Museums. Curators of the exhibition are Maria Flora Giubilei, Fernando Mazzocca and Alessandra Tiddia; the prestigious scientific committee is chaired by Antonio Paolucci. The general direction of the exhibition is entrusted to Gianfranco Brunelli.

NOT ONLY IN THE MUSEUM
LIBERTY IN FORLI '
Former coffee restaurant "Alla Vittoria"
V.le Vittorio Veneto - 47121 Forlì
Designed by the architect Leonida Emilio Rosetti, according to the Liberty style, in 1900, as the first accommodation facility near the railway station. The characterization of the building is entrusted to the simple compositional and decorative elements of the façade: from elegant wrought iron railings to plastic ornaments with garlands, female heads, glass windows, typical of contemporary European floral taste. The displacement of the railway caused the immediate decay of the hotel, which over time changed several uses.

Raffoni stationery
C.so Garibaldi, 10
The Liberty style in Forlì is also testified by shop signs such as the one created in 1927 by Leonida Emilio Rosetti for the Raffoni stationery store.

Palazzo Numai Foschi
Via G. Pedriali, 12
The building, built between the 14th and 15th centuries, was extensively renovated a century later by Pino Numai. The beautiful Renaissance diamond Portal stands out on the austere local terracotta facade, the lower part of which features the typical shoe