Francesco Hayez romantic painter

Francesco Hayez romantic painter

Art, history and politics are intertwined in the major exhibition that the Turin Gallery of Modern Art dedicates to the romantic genius of Francesco Hayez. The public is accompanied to discover the artist’s world, inside the painter’s workshop, to reveal his techniques and secrets. An original itinerary that compares paintings and drawings, with more than 100 works from prestigious public and private collections.

It will be open to the public from October 17, 2023 to April 01, 2024, the exhibition “Francesco Hayez Romantic Painter.”

In addition to unpublished or little-seen works, the exhibition will feature some of the most popular masterpieces, such as La Meditazione from the Musei Civici di Verona – Galleria d’Arte Moderna Achille Forti and The Secret Accusation from the Musei Civici del Castello Visconteo in Pavia, which is juxtaposed with Il Consiglio alla Vendetta, a prestigious loan from Liechtenstein.

Through ten sections in chronological succession, the exhibition begins with his formative years between Venice and Rome. Here Hayez enjoyed the protection and friendship of Canova, up to his first achievement in Milan and the last trials of his maturity. The exhibition evokes the intense biography and creative journey of the artist, an undisputed protagonist of Romanticism.

A “civil painter,” an interpreter of the destinies of the Italian nation, capable of extending the breath of his painting from history to current political events, he was also among the greatest portrait painters of all time, who was able to interpret with his production the spirit of his own era. A singer of beauty, love and Risorgimento values, in his long life he was a protagonist of epochal changes, witnessing the transition from Neoclassicism to Romanticism.

The novelty of this exhibition lies in bringing paintings and drawings together for the first time, allowing us to reconstruct and understand his creative process, introducing us to his atelier.