The latest retrospective of Giovanni Boldini in France it dates back more than sixty years. Yet the virtuoso portraitist was one of the greatest glories of Paris at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, as an attentive observer of the high society he admired and frequented.
Recognized as one of the great portrait painters of his time, Giovanni Boldini captures the vitality and effervescence of an entire era with extraordinary technical virtuosity. Whether he represents the Tuscany of the 60s, the Paris of the Third Republic or the mundane and frivolous milieu of the Belle Époque, he is the painter of an abundant period. Like Marcel Proust in literature, he mingles with the society he paints and thus offers ample testimony about his characters, his tastes, his customs and his pleasures. But Boldini was a victim of his own success. Too exuberant even for some worldly for the avant-garde, too easy or too chic for the others: we are accused of repeating the same formula and of designing personal and economic, far from the image of Épinal of the bohemian artist. In reality, Boldini respects all rules. A tireless innovator, he knew how to be sensitive to the masters of the past by restoring the frenzy of modernity, thanks to his swirling brushstroke. For this choice of an individual and independent art, he has maintained an absolute originality throughout his career. Thanks to the exceptional commitment of the Boldini Museum of Ferrara, the Petit Palais presents the Italian artist in all his facets, from his beginnings in Florence to his long career in Paris, from genre paintings to worldly portraits, passing through a more intimate production, jealously guarded in his workshop during his life.
oil on panel
© Francesca Dini Archive, Florence
The exhibition sees an exhibition divided into a series of thematic sessions:
Section 1 – Boldini before Boldini (1864-1871;
Section 2 – The Parisian beginnings of Boldini (1871-1880;
Section 3 – The rhythm of the city;
Section 4 - Intimate and official portraits (1880-1890);
Section 5 – The artist's laboratory;
Section 6 - An artistic and literary court (1890-1900);
Section 7 – Helleu, Sem and Boldini;
Section 8 – “I painted all genres”;
Section 9 – The time of elegance and modernity.
Campbell, nor Gertrude Elizabeth
Blood, 1894, oil on canvas,
London, National Portrait Gallery
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Born in Ferrara in Italy in 1842, Boldini spent most of his life in the City of Light. He was quickly introduced into artistic circles and became close to Degas. Protected by the merchant Adolphe Goupil, he noticed by his choice of subjects that evoke modernity and the bubbling of Parisian life. Boldini took advantage of the leisure activities offered by the capital and going out to the theater every evening, to the restaurant, always carrying his pencils with him. The night lights created by the new electric lighting fascinate as well as the incessant movements of this city that never stops. The paintings that he draws from his sketches such as The Party Scene at the Moulin Rouge testify to the effervescence that then conquers the city.
Bibesque, 1911.
The historian and woman of letters of Romanian origin, Marthe-Lucile Bibesco met Boldini shortly before 1910. She later recalled that the ladies of the time "dressed à la Boldini" and had to undergo slimming treatments to "resemble the ideal woman according to the canons of Boldinian Beauty”. In a sumptuous swirling black and silver evening gown, Bibesco's body is shot through with fiery energy. However, despite the enthusiasm of the princess, the canvas was rejected by her husband, who considered her neckline inappropriate.
The artist also became friends with the cartoonist Sem and the painter Paul Helleu and all three became inseparable. But beyond these genre scenes, it was his portraits that brought him success. Boldini grasps in a very modern key but against the current of the avant-garde everything that matters in the capital heiresses, princesses, dandies, artists and writers. The portraits of him that will forever fix all the Paris of the Belle Époque are like the pictorial equivalents of the characters of À la Recherche in a lost time by Proust, one of his greatest admirers. With these paintings, the painter also testifies to his marked taste for fashion. He paints broadly the most beautiful dresses of couturiers Worth, Paul Poiret, Jacques Doucet and many others and develops, on these orders, a unique style that will be his signature: a quick touch, the attention to the model's pose, highlighting the serpentine line of bodies. Through the works presented, the exhibition offers a captivating and moving testimony of this lost Paris.
An exhibition of 150 works combining paintings, drawings, prints, costumes and fashion accessories lent by international museums such as the Giovanni Boldini museum in Ferrara, the Capodimonte museum in Naples, the National Portrait Gallery in London, the d'Orsay museum, the Palais Galliera, the MAD among many others and many private collections.
Cover image: G.Boldini, Omnibus on Place Pigalle, vers 1882 Oil on panel © Private Collection (Petit Palais Paris)
