Genovesino. Nature and invention in the 17th century Cremonese painting
Curated by Francesco Frangi, Valerio Guazzoni, Marco Tanzi
The necessity of a mono-graphic exhibition about Luigi Miradori, called Genovesino, has been felt in Cremona for several years, as the artist (who was born in Liguria) has been the main protagonist of the painting scenery in this Lombardy town from the mid-thirties of the Seventeenth Century for two decades, till hi death, in 1656, and he has not enjoyed yet an exhibition adequate to his important role in the figurative panorama of the Baroque in Northern Italy. An exhibition about Genovesino in 2017 has necessarily to focus on the territory, as it is rich in works made by the artist, works that must be enhanced and exhibited in the civic museum; itis then necessary to borrow a series of paintings that are fundamental for the story of the artist and some comparison works coming from other museums and private collections, in Italy and abroad. Totally, the exhibited works are supposed to be more or less seventy (small, medium and large works).
The exhibition is organized as a monographic traditional exhibition that testifies the different phases of Miradori’s stylistic path, but that wants also to include the masterpieces of the first part of the 17th Century in Cremona and some works that, in Genoa and in the Farnesi dukedom, had an impact on the imaginative world of this young painter.
And then, the first periods of Miradori in Genoa, the period in Piacenza with the Farnese Family, the arrival in Cremona, the change in the social status, the relationship with the noblemen and with the Spanish lord of the castle don Álvaro de Quiñones. His portraying skills, the theme of Vanitas, the picaresque taste, (almost parallel with the Bamboccianti active in Roma), the different influences: all these elements (from Genoa and Milan to the painters active in Parma’s dukedom, Guido Reni and Guercino) offer answers and open new perspectives for a deeper analysis of the artist. They are small and medium works, “paintings for rooms” with mainly profane subjects “, that demonstrate the variety of the themes treated by the painter at the advanced formal levels. And then, in chronological order, the altar’s paintings that end with the masterpiece by Genovesino, Riposo durante la fuga in Egitto of Sant’Imerio.
Same importance for Miradori’s routes in the town from the Municipality Palace with Moltiplicazione dei pani e dei pesci and l’Ultima cena to the St. Rocco Altar in the Cathedral (with the left chapel in San Marcellino transept). It could be interesting including in the route the churches of San Siro and San Rocco in Soresina. This exhibition and its routes offers the opportunity to analyze through Genovesino’s paintings a fundamental part of Cremona in the 17th Century and to highlight for the first time in an organic way the activity of one of the main protagonists of the figurative culture of the 17th Century in Liguria, Emilia and Lombardy, identifying adequately his stylistic coordinates and the complex map of his clients.
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