A new exhibition opening at Palazzo Blu in Pisa celebrates the elegance and vitality of the Belle Époque through the eyes of the Italian painters who helped define it. From October 15, 2025, to April 7, 2026, the show “Belle Époque. Italian Painters in Paris in the Age of Impressionism”, curated by art historian Francesca Dini and organized by MondoMostre with the support of Fondazione Pisa, brings together around one hundred works from some of the world’s leading museums — including the Musée d’Orsay, the Louvre, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Uffizi Galleries, and Capodimonte — as well as from private collections never before displayed in public.
From revolution to refinement
The exhibition begins in the turbulent years that followed the fall of Napoleon III in 1870, when Europe stood at the crossroads of political upheaval and artistic rebirth. In Paris, the collapse of the Second Empire and the tragic episode of the Commune marked the end of an age of military heroism and the birth of the flâneur, the urban observer celebrated by Baudelaire. Artists turned from the battlefield to the boulevards, finding inspiration in modern life, fashion, and the fleeting rhythms of the metropolis.
This transition — from realism and civic engagement to the cosmopolitan elegance of the fin-de-siècle — sets the historical backdrop for the exhibition. It was in this environment that a generation of Italian painters found their voice in Paris, redefining the image of modernity itself.
Boldini, De Nittis, Zandomeneghi, and Corcos
Among the protagonists are Giovanni Boldini, the brilliant portraitist of high society, whose swift brushwork and theatrical compositions immortalized the glamour of the Parisian elite; Giuseppe De Nittis, a refined interpreter of urban modernity who captured the atmosphere of the boulevards and the light of fashionable life; and Federico Zandomeneghi, whose Impressionist sensibility translated into delicate domestic scenes and intimate portraits. Alongside them, Vittorio Corcos, with his poised and introspective women, represented the psychological elegance of the new bourgeois world.
Together, these artists created a bridge between Italy and France, between tradition and innovation. Their works reveal how the Italian school contributed not merely to the decorative charm of the Belle Époque but to the very construction of its visual language — an art of movement, luminosity, and desire that mirrored a rapidly changing society.
A journey through modern beauty
The nine sections of the exhibition trace the major themes of the period: from the social contradictions of the late 19th century to the triumph of the modern city, from Impressionist light to the allure of fashion and photography. Through the sophisticated portraits of Boldini, Sargent, Blanche, and Helleu, the urban views of De Nittis, and the Impressionist atmospheres of Zandomeneghi, visitors are invited to rediscover the belle époque as more than an age of elegance — a time when art, literature, science, and social life converged to make Paris the cultural heart of the world.
Belle Époque – Italian Painters in Paris in the Age of Impressionism
Palazzo Blu, Lungarno Gambacorti 9, Pisa
October 15, 2025 – April 7, 2026
Open Monday–Friday 10am–7pm; weekends and holidays 10am–8pm (last entry one hour before closing)
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