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| Trieste from the Palazzo Revoltella
The great thing about visiting new places
is the opportunity it affords to check out the art galleries for artists whose work is unfamiliar to you.
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| The Palazzo Revoltella
I have just been to
Trieste and visited the Palazzo Revoltella. Which was once
the home of local importer, financier
and politician Pasquale Revoltella. He bequeathed
his palazzo to the commune of Trieste and with it a huge sum of money with instructions that they build and house an art collection.
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| The modern art gallery in Palazzo Revoltella |
Since then it has grown into a substantial gallery of late 19th century and 20th century art.
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| Pasquale Revoltella
Pasquale became very much involved in the building of the Suez canal, obviously seeing the commercial benefits of it , but died just a month
before it opened. Despite being unspeakably wealthy he never married, which
may explain the large numbers of paintings of woman’s cleavages that adorned
his walls.
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| The early version of Playboy magazine. |
Before the days of photography and the internet, wealthy men could afford to employ painters to give them pleasing images of the female form
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| The dining room in Palazzo Revolterra
One painting that intrigued me was this
one ironically named The Holy Water
by an Austrian painter who I had never heard of called Albin Egger-Lienz (1868-1926) . |
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| The Holy Water by Albin Egger-Lienz |
Its unusual and powerful composition caught my eye immediately, so later via the wonders of the internet I managed to find more images of his work.
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| He was commissioned as a war artist in 1914 |
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| Albin Egger-Lienz ( a rather serious looking gentleman) |
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| Resting Shepherds by Albin Egger-Lienz |
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| The Sower by Jean Francoise Millet His paintings of rural life owe a lot to Jean-François Millet, but his compositional talents are all his own. |
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| Hardtimes by Albin Egger-Lienz In the modern sculpture room I found this delightful small sculpture |
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Homage, 1963, steel, cm
70x65 by Dino Basaldella
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It was so full of lovely lines and intuitive sculptural ideas I wanted to steal it
Again on the internet I found that he was one of 3 artist brothers, Dino, Mirko and Afro, the later becoming the most well known of the three.
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| by Afro Basaldella |
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| by Mirko Basaldella
All three were working through the 40's, 50's and 60's all exploring the visual language and producing work of high quality. I have begun to notice that whenever I am wandering through a gallery and something catches my eye from a distance as something of quality and I go over and check it out, it more often than not turns out to be pre 1970.
Does this mean that my taste is stuck those years or that very little since then is of quality? How would I know?
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