Domenico Piola exhibition in Genoa, the review

In the broad context of a national exhibition scene that often leaves something to be desired, taken as it is by following the reasons of marketing more often than those of scientific rigor, and increasingly accustomed to cutting off from the major circuits any proposal that deviates from established patterns, an exhibition such as Domenico Piola 1628-1703. Paths of Baroque Painting, underway in Genoa, seems almost an act of courage that should be rewarded regardless.

Squeezed as we are between the meshes of a largely flat and homogenized system, this monograph on a painter of local scope such as Domenico Piola (Genoa, 1628 - 1703), whose production is almost entirely preserved in Liguria, is worthy of interest not only for intrinsic reasons, such as the extreme coherence of the itinerary conceived by curator Daniele Sanguineti for the venue of Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino, the punctual comparisons with the painters who suggested to Piola the “path” to take, and the relevance of the intelligent (and, if you will, also engaging) keys to interpretation provided for a vast production that is difficult to summarize with about fifty paintings (in this sense, Daniele Sanguineti has done an egregious job), but also because the exhibition on Piola is a total exhibition, involving the entire city.

Indeed, the “paths” to which the title alludes unfold through the whole of Genoa, which is why places such as Palazzo Rosso (where, in addition to the rooms frescoed by Piola, visitors will find an exhibition of a group of about fifty of his drawings: this will be briefly accounted for in the conclusion), Palazzo Bianco, or the churches of Santissima Annunziata del Vastato, Santa Maria di Castello, and Santa Maria delle Vigne, and all the sites that the information material lists and describes precisely, are to be considered an integral part of the main itinerary, that of Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino: the historic palace on Strada Nuova, with its collected and frescoed rooms shortly before Piola was born, stands as a place more than any other suitable not only to host a review of seventeenth-century Genoese painting, but also and above all to allow the development of the curator’s interesting reflections, which seek to offer the visitor a kind of excellent guided itinerary, through the career, production and themes of Domenico Piola’s painting.

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Domenico Piola exhibition in Genoa, the review

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