Uffizi Gallery, Florence
‘From Rule to Fancy: Spanish Artists in Italy in the Early Mannerist Period’
5th March – 26th May 2013
The first event in the 2013 ‘Year of Art’ series, this unique exhibition is the first ever to look at the Spanish artists who came to Italy in the first decades of the sixteenth century to visit Rome, Naples and Florence in order to drink deep of the cultural waters.
Michelangelo himself doffed his cap towards Spain in the following (attributed) quote:
I say that no nation and no people (other than one or two Spaniards) can perfectly assimilate or copy the Italian manner of painting (which is in the style of ancient Greece) without being immediately and easily recognised as foreigners, however much they may try.
The exhibition has four key sections and juxtaposes Italian and Spanish pieces, with an interesting section along the lines of a ‘before and after’ exhibition, showing the effects of the Italian sojourn on their works upon returning to Spain.