World culture: The “Images of Italy” exhibition in the Hermitage-Kazan Center

The "Images of Italy" opened at the Hermitage-Kazan Center. It features over 200 paintings, drawings and sculpture of XVII-XX centuries from the collection of the State Hermitage. They reveal all the beauty and colors of Italy, a country with a rich past, which contributed to the world with the geniuses of literature, art and science, and which is the cradle of the Renaissance.

At the exhibition Italy is shown with the eyes of Western artists. Starting from the XVI century Italian masters turn to role models for many painters and sculptors from France, Spain, Germany, and Netherlands. In the XVII century the cultural exchange between artists has become even closer. At the same time a type of artist, who came to Italy and stayed there for his lifetime, begins to take shape. Since the second half of the XVII century, and especially in the XVIII century a trip to Italy with ordering custom portraiture, purchasing paintings and sculptures became almost obligatory for British, French and Russian aristocracy.

Rich collections of the Hermitage, along with the selected personally by the royals pieces, are full of works that the travelers has brought from Italy for their private collections. These paintings and sculptures were often adorning the private, rather than formal places, and mostly valued as a memory of the sights that their owners have seen, rather than for their artistic value.

The bronze statues complement presented paintings, demonstrating a high interest, especially in the second half of the XVIII century, of travelers to antiquity. These are the reduced copies of famous ancient Roman statues.

The most popular for collecting though appeared to be, due to its ease shipment and relatively low cost, the graphic sheets with views of Italy. For this reason in XVIII century the cityscape genre has been widely developed in Italy.

This exhibition is also unique in fact that it takes place in a jubilee year for the Hermitage-Kazan Center — in the year of its decade.