March 2007 Archives

Finally a report that is more factual than hype about Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation leaving Italy:

"It's not like the painting was shipped in a cardboard box filled with bubble wrap and peanuts."

It also mentions that this painting was done when Leonardo was an "apprentice" (hint, hint - it really isn't a "da Vinci"). The AP story that ran world wide also had Amato "chained to the gates" of the Uffizi. Well, the Uffizi doesn't have any gates, and except for the cigar chomping Senator, not many people seemed interested in this whole charade. Famous works or art like this travel around the world all the time, and Amato did seem to come off like a publicity hound. This story tells more of the Uffizi's side, but it's the side that also makes more sense.

We have been over to the Uffizi a couple of times this morning already to check on the removal of Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation (the painting is heading to Japan for an exhibit).

At around 8:00 I saw what was most likely the crate for the painting entering the museum. Curiously all the press that was around was on the other side of the building, waiting for Senator Paolo Amato to show up. Senator Amato is described as a center right politician and a member of Forza Italia.

The exhibit "Cézanne in Florence" at the Palazzo Strozzi is fantastic. A strongly curated show, that is well documented (details on every work in Italian and English, plus some notes specifically for children) and has many amazing works by Cézanne and others. The exhibit is meticulous in laying out the details of the two collectors, Egisto Paolo Fabbri and Charles Alexander Loeser, who first owned most of these paintings.

The biggest delights and surprises however for me were with the contemporary and later paintings influenced by Cézanne. Mary Cassat, Van Gogh, Pissaro, and Matisse (to name a few) all have works in this show that were completely unexpected. The small Matisse is a very strange but powerful painting and something I can't recall ever seeing before, which is so refreshing from an artist with that much history. There is also a small room devoted to Cézanne's influence in Tuscan painting that has some eye opening works, especially the two canvases by Giovanni Fattori.

Note: Cézanne in Florence was an exhibition that took place from March 2, 2007 to July 29, 2007

This story keeps heating up - here is an article from the AP with some juicy quotes from some Italian officials:

""It's absolute madness to send such works running around," Zeffirelli said. "The minister who authorized this must be stopped."

Paolo Amato, a center-right senator, has demanded twice in parliament that Rutelli desist from the project, and now threatens to chain himself to the Uffizi's gates on the day the painting leaves. He said the loan exposes a priceless masterpiece to unnecessary risks and belittles its significance by using it in a commercial event.

"It's like sending the 'Mona Lisa' to promote French cheeses," he said referring to the Leonardo masterpiece kept in Paris' Louvre Museum."