Works and artists - Finestre sull'Arte

The archetypal chair: Philippe Starck's La Marie, the world's first transparent chair

Antonella Galli writes, in her book I luoghi del design, that Philippe Starck, with the celebrated La Marie chair made for Kartell, gave "polycarbonate its heroic moment," with an object that "succeeds in sublimating even the minimalism that reigned ...
Read more...

The doors of the Baptistery of Florence, Lorenzo Ghiberti's masterpiece

On November 23, 1403, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Pelago, 1378 - Florence, 1455) signed the contract for the construction of the North Door of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence. This was the final outcome of the competition announced in 1401 by theArt...
Read more...

Perugino in the Collegio del Cambio frescoes: the classical and Christian Renaissance

Walking around the Sala delle Udienze (Audience Hall ) of Perugia's Nobile Collegio del Cambio , one will easily spot, on the wall toward the entrance, a self-portrait of the author of the frescoes, Perugino (Pietro Vannucci; Città della Pieve...
Read more...

The fierce and scandalous realism of Gustave Courbet's Origine du Monde

Among the works representing female bodies, bearers of more or less erotic messages, L'Origine du Monde by Gustave Courbet (Ornans, 1819 - La-Tour-de-Peilz, 1877) is the one that more than any other engages with fierce realism: it is a work that help...
Read more...

Perugino's Madonna of Consolation, the work the artist did not want to deliver

Art history enthusiasts who frequent social networks are sure to have come across vignettes and "memes" (i.e., humorous images made by putting an ironic comment on a photograph that comes from a different context) a few times that play on theimpassib...
Read more...

The performer is not an actor, he is the one who performs acts. Conversation with Angelo Pretolani

Angelo Pretolani (Genoa, 1953) is one of the pioneers of Italian performance. His first performance, Minotaur,dates back to 1973 , with which he denounced the bewilderment of people in the face of the often uncontrolled growth of cities. Since then P...
Read more...

A cornerstone of the young Perugino: the Farneto Pietà

Over the course of his career Perugino (Pietro Vannucci; Città della Pieve, c. 1450 - Fontignano, 1523) made several gonfalons, or banners that were usually painted on canvas because they were intended to be carried during processions, and thu...
Read more...

Perugino's Adoration of the Magi, the masterpiece with which the painter introduced himself to the world

In his Lives, Giorgio Vasari does not give an enthusiastic judgment of theAdoration of the Magi that Perugino (Pietro Vannucci; Città della Pieve, c. 1448 - Fontignano, 1523) painted for the church of Santa Maria dei Servi in Perugia, now pres...
Read more...

Caravaggio's enigmatic Bacchus, the early masterpiece at the Uffizi.

Today, Caravaggio 's Bacchus (Michelangelo Merisi; Milan, 1571 - Porto Ercole, 1610) is one of the most famous paintings in the history of art, one of those for which people purposefully queue to enter the Uffizi. But a little more than a hundred yea...
Read more...

Nicola Bolla's painting, from Pigment Paintings to LP paintings

Everyone knows For the love of God, the diamond-covered skull that Damien Hirst executed in 2007 garnering worldwide praise and acclaim. How many, however, know the artist who most likely inspired it? One has to look to Piedmont, where Nicola Bolla w...
Read more...

Anna G, Alessandro Mendini's woman-shaped corkscrew, a symbol of playful design

"Anna the dancer" is what Chiara Alessi remembers the Anna G corkscrew being called by most people when it was introduced. Anna G was designed by Italian designer Alessandro Mendini in 1994 and was produced by the design company Alessi. The corkscrew...
Read more...

A Cremonese among the Venetians. The Madonna of Altobello Melone at the Carrara Academy.

As soon as one arrives in the hall of the Veneti at the Carrara Academy in Bergamo, after laying eyes on Altobello Melone's Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, one will realize that the caption accompanying the painting tends to emphasize th...
Read more...

Botticelli's Venus, a symbol of the Renaissance

Sandro Botticelli 's Birth of Venus is a masterpiece for which adjectives have now run out. Celebrated by poets and men of letters, the very image of the Renaissance, the Florentine in particular and the Italian in general, turned into...
Read more...

Brief history of the artist who gulled the fascists with a fake Madonna by Leonardo da Vinci

The story of the Madonna del Gatto is a curious affair that took place in Milan in 1939, during the exhibition dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci in the Palazzo dell'Arte in Parco Sempione. Cesare Tubino (Genoa, 1899 - Turin, 1990), an artist who opposed...
Read more...

Giovanni Pisano's Pistoia pulpit, an innovative masterpiece

At the beginning of the 14th century, the church of Sant'Andrea in Pistoia was provided with new and important liturgical furnishings. By 1301, in fact, the sculptor Giovanni Pisano created a pulpit for this space that marked important novelties with...
Read more...