Museum of the Innocents, Piazza SS. Annunziata, October 27, 2023 – April 7, 2024.
Let’s face it, finding Art Nouveau, the new art, or Liberty style as it’s known in Italian, in Florence is not easy. In Florence, the novelty that swept across Europe at the end of the 19th century— the pursuit of beauty and craftsmanship combined with industrial reproducibility—doesn’t find particularly fertile ground. Even though the decorated ceramics by Galileo Chini, first produced by the Arte della Ceramica in via Arnolfo and later by the Fornaci di San Lorenzo, were highly successful at the time.
When it comes to architecture, Liberty-style villas in Florence, designed by Giovanni Michelazzi, are “relegated” to residential areas like via Scipione Ammirato and via Giano della Bella, except for the Casa Vichi in Borgo Ognissanti. But these are examples that can be counted on one hand.
In my opinion, Florence is a city that remains deeply tied to its past, both culturally and structurally (think about the exhibitions at Palazzo Strozzi: in two of the latest ones dedicated to Olafur Eliasson and Anish Kapoor, great imagination is required to understand their works, which are always suitable for large formats and hardly reproduce the same effect in a fifteenth-century palace).
Now, the exhibition dedicated to Alphonse Mucha at the Museum of the Innocents allows us to take a journey through time. Walking through those rooms feels like strolling through Paris at the turn of the 20th century. The sinuous lines envelop us, pastel colors relax our gazes, captivated by the beauty of Sarah Bernhardt, the protagonist of many of Mucha’s works.
Yes, she was his inspiring muse, the one who requested the poster for her show at Théatre de la Renaissance, Gismonda, and many others, so much so that she signed an exclusive contract with him for six years. Sarah Bernhardt and Mucha’s women, in general, are not only beautiful but also bold, immersed in their society. Women in the numerous posters he worked on after the contract with Bernhardt, smoke, ride bicycles, drink beer mugs. Free women who don’t care about social judgment.
In this, Mucha’s message remains very current and particularly significant today.
In 1910, Mucha returned to his homeland, Moravia, a region of present-day Czechoslovakia, and dedicated himself to reviving the culture of his native country. Through twenty giant canvases, after careful studies, he represented episodes of the Slavic Epic.
He died in 1939, from pneumonia, but mainly affected in spirit by the fact that Nazi troops had invaded Czechoslovakia, established in 1918.
Visiting Mucha’s exhibition will be an opportunity to cross Piazza della SS. Annunziata, the most Florentine of all squares, to linger in front of the cherubs by Andrea della Robbia, wrapped in swaddling clothes, to climb to the fifth floor of the Museum where, on the terrace, the ancient nurses’ drying rack, you can enjoy coffee in front of a magnificent panorama, and then… why not… you can revisit the Ghirlandaio altarpiece with the Adoration of the Magi. A masterpiece, sometimes forgotten.
