Vilhelm Hammershøi and painters of silence between northern Europe and Italy. The exhibition at Palazzo Roverella in Rovigo – Carlo Franza’s blog

In Rovigo at Palazzo Roverella it is held until 29 June 2025, promoted by the Cassa di Risparmio di Padova and Rovigo Foundation, The first Italian exhibition dedicated to Vilhelm Hammershøi (Copenhagen, 1864-1916), which was the greatest Danish painter of his time, one of the genes of European art between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

For a few years its rediscovery has been underway, and as a character almost forgotten Hammershøi has become one of the most requested in the world: In the market, the prices have reached amazing levels, with exponential increases observable even from month to month; and museums of the whole globe are competing for his works to organize retrospectives. In 2025 that of Palazzo Roverella will not only be the first Italian exhibition dedicated to the Danish painter, but the only one internationally. This makes the Rodigina company truly exceptional, which also aims to compare the masterpieces of Hammershøi with works by important artists contemporary to him, with an eye – in such combinations – to Italy, to the Scandinavian countries, to France and Belgium. In fact, there are elements that unite the members of this poetics of silence, solitude, of the deserted city views, of the “landscapes of the soul”. But visitors will discover that in Hammershøi there is something more, thinly disturbing, anguished and perhaps even turbid: his women are almost always portrayed from behind; The domestic environments, apparently ordered and quiet, actually let or suspect secret dramas, or the expectation of looming tragedies, with a claustrophobic sense.

The biography of the artist, who traveled frequently (especially in Italy, England and the Netherlands), but in truth he was a lonely man, induces to reflect on some enigmatic aspects: although married, Hammershøi maintained a very close, almost symbiotic relationship with his mother, often returning to sleep with her; His favorite wife and model, Ida IlSted, was hit by a serious mental illness; His painting, which will inspire the great film director Carl Theodor Dreyer, was called “nevrasthenics”. There is enough to wait as an authentic and unrepeatable event the exhibition of Palazzo Roverella. Of the great Danish artist, a fundamental nucleus of works will arrive in Rovigo, selected in the rarefied production of the artist. Pupil before Niels Christian Kierkegaard and Holger Grønvold, then by Frederik Vermehren at Kongelige Danske Kunstakademi, and finally by Peder Severin Krøyer, made his debut in 1885. For years his rediscovery has been underway internationally: large and important exhibitions dedicated to him have been carried out in Paris at the Musée Jacquemart-André, in Tokyo al

National Museum of Western Art, in New York at the Scandinavia House, in London at the Royal Academy, in Munich at the Kunsthalle der Hypo-KulturStifung, in Toronto at the Art Gallery of Ontario, in Barcelona at the Center de Cultura de Culture Contemorània, in Krakow at the Muzeum Narodowe etc. To date, an Italian retrospective was still missing, which placed the figure of Hammershøi in the right emphasis, a secluded but fundamental protagonist of the art of the late nineteenth century and the first fifteen years of the twentieth century. A gap that the great Rodigina exhibition has the ambition to fill.

“The exhibition of Palazzo Roverella, however, does not simply propose to offer the public of the Bel Paese an opportunity to get to know more closely the works of an extraordinary painter, recognizable for the minimalist intimism of its interiors and for the restless atmosphere that is released from an apparent rigorism, but to slide strands of research remained almost unexplored: on the one hand the relationship between Hammersh. On the other, the comparison with European artists above all contemporary who, with different shades, practiced a poetic based on the themes of silence, solitude, of the ‘dead cities’, of the ‘landscapes of the soul’. The French-René Ménard, Henri Duhem, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, Charles Marie Dulac, Henri Le Sidanener, Charles Lacoste and Alphonse Osbert, the Belgians Fernand Khnopff, Georges Le Brun and William Degouve de Nuncques, the Dutch Jozef Israëls and Bernard and Bernard Blommers, the Swedish Tyra Kleen, the Danes Peter Vilhelm Ilsted, Carl Holsøe and Svend Hammershøi. And, of course, the Italians: Umberto Prencipe, Giuseppe Ar, Oscar Ghiglia, Vittore Grubicy de Dragon, Mario De Maria, Giulio Aristide Sartorio, Vittorio Grassi, Orazio Amato, Umberto Moggioli, Domenico Baccarini, Giuseppe Ugonia, Francesco Vitalini, Mario Reviglione “, anticipates the curator.

“Hammershøi – underlines the curator – traveled several times in the peninsula, visited Rome, collected postcards with views of the city, and above all he reflected on classical antiquity and looked at the so -called primitives: Giotto, blessed Angelico, Masolino, Masaccio, Luca Signorelli, desire from Settignano. Although he has A single work of Italian subject (which will be on display) painted, during their stays he exercised extreme attention and received ideas and teachings, which contributed to outlining his personal language. Moreover, it is not necessary to ignore the role that the canonical stay in Rome traditionally played in the formation of young Danish artists “.
“The report, however, worked in a biunivocal sense: not a few Italian painters of different geographical origins, in fact, were suggested by the vision or knowledge of works by Hammershøi, both contemporary to him, and of the subsequent generation. In addition, some critics, in the peninsula, were interested in Hammershøi’s work rather early: Vittorio Pica, Ugo Ojetti, Emilio Cecchi, and important magazines such as “Il Marzocco” and “Emporium” dedicated articles to him “. “In short, the research ideas are not lacking, and the objective of the exhibition is to shed light on them, also on the basis of documentary investigations that speed up unpublished aspects, and of critical reflections that deepen strands worthy of interest, from the topos of the figure portrayed of behind the reason for the silent interior and landscapes without human presences, from the human isolation of Hammershøi to the ‘poverty’ of his paintings “.

“Hammershøi and the painters of silence”, after a short lunge on the historical precedents of the theme of silent interiors, It deepens the four supporting areas of the artist’s research: the interiors, the architectural views, almost always without human presences, portraits and landscape painting.
The curator will then be – anticipates the curator – anticipates the Hammershøi relationship with Italy: “From the iconographic repercussions (for example with its representation of the Basilica of Santo Stefano Rotondo al Celio, visited in the capital) in the presence of works of the artist in exhibitions of the time, such as the 1911 Rome Quadrennial, to concentrate in particular on the approval and the poetics and the subjects of Italian painters, Also with the investigation of the impact that the direct vision or knowledge in reproduction of works by Hammershøi exercised until they approved in the thirties of the twentieth century “. To complete the path it will be an original thematic and stylistic comparison between the production of Hammershøi and the paintings of Coevi Scandinavi, French, Belgian and Dutch artists, to highlight affinity and differences, in the crown of some leitmotives: the silent interiors, the solitude, the “dead cities”, the “landscapes of the soul”.

Carlo Franza