Through April 27, 2023 curated by Pietro C. Marani, Palazzo Loredan – Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti hosts the exhibition “De’ visi mostruosi e caricature. Da Leonardo da Vinci a Bacon” (Monstrous faces and caricatures: from Leonardo da Vinci to Bacon), an extraordinary exhibition among deformed faces, anatomical exaggerations, physiognomic investigations, caricature figures and galleries of human characters.
Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci‘s annotations in the Codex Atlanticus and the Treatise on Painting “De’ visi mostruosi non parlo, perché senza fatica si tengono a mente” (I am not speaking of monstrous faces, because they are easily remembered), the exhibition’s goal is not so much to investigate how and why the singular and fascinating genre of caricature develops, or rather the deformation and transformation of physiognomic traits, as to make clear the existence of a “northern” line of continuity in this area; which, starting precisely from the “monstrous faces” of Leonardo and the “ridiculous paintings” of the Lombards, taking on the experiences of Carracci’s naturalism, flourished in the lagoon in the first half of the eighteenth century.
More than 75 works from international museums and private collections, from the Musée du Louvre in Paris to the Civic Art Collections of Castello Sforzesco, from the Uffizi Galleries to the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, from the Designmuseum Danmark to the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice up to the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, will be on display.
Website: www.fondazioneligabue.it
Location: Palazzo Loredan, Venice
Schedule: until April 27, 2023
