Italian Culture Week 2008 at NGA
National Gallery of Art Salutes Italy's Renaissance Art and Heritage
Italian Culture Week at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is celebrated with a lecture, scholarly discussion, book signing and film screening.
Washington's D.C.'s National Gallery of Art joined forces with the Embassy of Italy to present a series of events from April 1 to 6, 2008 that celebrate Italy's cultural links to the American capital.
Lecture, Panel Discussion and Book Signing, East Building Auditorium, April 2, 2008, 12:00 Noon to 1:30 PM
His Excellency Giovanni Castellaneta, Italian Ambassador to the United States, inaugurates Italian Culture Week and introduces Professor Luca Molinari of the University of Naples, editor of The Italian Legacy in Washington, D.C.: Architecture, Design, Art and Culture. The volume was published in 2007 by Skira Editore S.p.A., Milan, Italy and distributed in North America by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York. Dr. Molineri's presentation will be followed by a panel discussion featuring David Alan Brown, the NGA's Curator and Head of Italian and Spanish Paintings, a renowned expert on the art of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
Film Screening: Abitare Palladio, East Building Auditorium, April 4, 2008, 12:00 Noon to 1:30 PM
Andrea Palladio (1508-1580) was the preeminent architect of the Italian Renaissance in Venice. The author of Four Books of Architecture, first published in 1570, his designs incorporated both classical Roman and contemporary Italian ideas. Modern-day architects and owners of Palladian palaces and villas designed by the master are interviewed in Abitare Palladio, a 40-minute documentary produced by RAI Television, Italy. The maintenance and preservation of Palladio's landmarks, many turned into museums or owned by foreign corporations, are thoroughly discussed.
Italian Art at the NGA
Italian art from the 13th through 16th Centuries is well represented in the National Gallery of Art's collection. This is due in part to the generosity of beneficent donors such as Samuel H. Kress and the keen eye of past curators, Dr. Nicholas Penny amongst them. One can trace through the museum's holdings the late-medieval shift from the Byzantine iconic and spiritually abstract to the Renaissance emphasis on the visibly real and anthropomorphic in scale, a result of Greek and Roman learning's rediscovery by humanist scholars. Christian subjects continued to flourish alongside those derived from classical mythology. Yet in central Italy, direct observation allowed the artist to depict his subjects and their world more naturalistically. A high point of this revolution in thought is perhaps best expressed by Leonardo da Vinci in his sensitive Ginevra de' Benci (1474/78). Other high-quality works in the museum's collection, painted subsequent to this masterpiece of portraiture, are testimony to the National Gallery of Art's devotion to Italian Renaissance art at its finest.
Sources:
- Boucher, Bruce. Andrea Palladio: The Architect in His Time. New York: Abbeville Press, 2007.
- Brown, David Alan (ed.), et al. Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo da Vinci's "Ginevra de' Benci" and Renaissance Portraits of Women (exh. cat.). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2001, 142-147.
- Molinari, Luca (ed.), et al. The Italian Legacy in Washington, D.C.: Architecture, Design, Art and Culture. Milan: Skira Editore S.p.A., 2007.
- Pollard, John Graham, et al. Renaissance Medals. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2007.
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