Courbet in Italia. Una storia novecentesca I

The discovery of unpublished documents in the ASAC (contemporary art archives) in Venice has at last made it possible to reconstruct the first Italian Courbet retrospective at the Venice Biennale of 1910, its public and critical reception, and how the painter’s work was seen between 1910 and 1919. In addition, Courbet’s fortunes in Italy are interwoven with those of Roberto Longhi, who in the wake of his pioneering studies of Caravaggio and the Seicento was immediately drawn to the master of realism, and whose earliest writings established a parallel between the two artists. Courbet’s name appears throughout Longhi’s career, shaping the evolution of how he wrote the history of art, from his initial re ections to his maturity.