During the exhibition Bernardo Bellotto 1740. Journey to Tuscany, to be held in Lucca (12 October to 6 January), promoted by the Fondazione Centro Studi sull’Arte Licia e Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, the curator Bozena Anna Kowalczyk will give a talk in Venice, previewing the latest art-historical findings that have emerged from studies on the subject ahead of the Lucca exhibition. The lecture has been organised by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and the Fondazione Ragghianti.

 

At the age of eighteen, Bernardo Bellotto (1722-1780), nephew and student of Canaletto (1697-1768), set out for Tuscany: it was his first journey outside Venice. He had already built up a fairly good artistic production, but mostly replicas of his master’s vedute of Venice. In Florence and Lucca, he worked independently for the first time. It was thus a test of his true abilities, and the young artist acquitted himself so brilliantly as to become a reference point for Tuscan landscape painting.

In her lectio magistralis on this leading figure in eighteenth-century Venetian painting, Bozena Anna Kowalczyk presents the journey in Tuscany as the springboard for Bellotto’s successful career in Italy and the rest of Europe.

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Sala Barbantini, 11 September 2019, 5 pm