«Un artist has no home in Europe except in Paris” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche in Ecce Homo in 1888. Ernest Hemingway confirmed it a few decades later: «If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young person wherever you go, for the rest of your life, it will stay with you». How many creative people would have wanted to experience the magnetism of that city which in the nineteenth century was preparing to become a metropolis, an artistic and cultural laboratory, a stage for an effervescent worldliness?
“From the mid-nineteenth century Paris was considered the most beautiful capital in the world: modern and bourgeois, full of Grand Boulevards, parks and the first department stores. Stunned by the Exposition Universelle of 1867, many artists chose to stay” he says Elisabetta Chiodini, curator of the exhibition Boldini, De Nittis and Les Italiens de Paris (at the Novara Castle until 7 April 2024). THEThe myth of the Parisian was born in those years thanks to a society in which brilliant and modern figures not only bewitched with charm, but also with culture and savoir-faire. «All my thoughts as long as I stay here will be to think about how to settle in Paris» confided Giovanni Boldini after a visit to the Universal Exhibition. He will return and his success will even earn him a mention in Huysmans’s Countercurrent: «penetrating and ductile, nervous and shrewd… a style expert in modulating the complicated nuances of an era that was in itself singularly complex».
Italians in Paris
«Boldini he was a heartthrob. When he met Gabrielle, wife of Count Constatin de Rasty, he was introduced to the Parisian high society which allowed him to become one of the greatest portraitists in Europe » specifies Chiodini. «Friend of famous couturiers such as Poiret, Doucet and Paquin, he sent ladies to them who did not exhibit his toiletries in his studio to his taste». Giuseppe De Nittiin Paris he arrived there at the age of 21, forming relationships with well-known merchants until meeting Léontine, who as well as a model was also his wife and great love. In their living room, the newly arrived Italian artists met poets, writers and artists, from the de Goncourt brothers to Émile Zola. In the worldly portrait Vittorio Matteo Corcos stood out. Beloved in all the royal courts, he remained in Paris until 1886, then continuing to work for the French market and establishing himself as a portraitist perhaps even more than Boldini. «If I don’t know beforehand the man or woman whose portrait I have to paint» explained the artist «if they don’t invite me to breakfast, I’ll invite them. I need to eat with my model. At the table the most staid lady reveals herself as perhaps she will never do in a conversation lasting many hours in her living room.”
Help from home
Federico Zandomeneghiwho became a costume designer for fashion magazines so as not to submit to the painting rules imposed by the great merchants, was theThe only Italian included among the Impressionistsfor working in close contact with Degas. «Antonio Mancini also shone in the world of portraiture, creating small stages for each painting, dressing his characters in ad hoc clothes. He had crates of fabrics and clothes made in Italy sent to him by his father, a tailor and weaver »concludes Elisabetta. Actors, artists, chefs…
How many Italians in recent years have found their success and dimension in the Ville Lumière? In The Italians. Stories and meetings with Italian talents who have conquered France (Rizzoli) the journalist, correspondent and host of Tg5 Dario Maltese strings together stories, the result of years of meetings. «Without being a sociological treatise, these stories exclude any rivalry with Italy. Here we talk about great minds that have been able to conquer France. The secret to their success? Understand the codes. Inviting a friend to dinner at the last minute in Italy is normal, for many across the Alps it is almost offensive. A way of life that just needs to be codified and accepted, like their love for their own language »he explains.
Giuseppe De Nittis “Dans le blé” oil on panel
Willpower
Giuliano da Empoli, winner of the Grand Prix du roman of the Académie Française for Le Mage du Kremlin, he wrote his first book in French. While Francesca Bellettini, CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, famous for quadrupling its turnover, arrived without saying a word: but instead of demanding meetings in English she preferred to study and participate, at first, with a translator. «She taught me something beautiful: if you have a goal you must already imagine yourself in that role, and behave accordingly».
The journalist and writer Dario Maltese with Eleonora Abbagnato, among the characters told by ltese
in his new book “Les italiens. Stories and meetings with Italian talents who have conquered France” (Rizzoli).
What these characters have in common is willpower, just like that of Eleonora Abbagnato, admitted at the age of thirteen to the Paris Opera School. In that very rigid world she had the tenacity to remain » underlines Maltese. Turn on your phone during a show or at the cinema? An insult. In France, the respect given to artists and their art is greater. As confirmed by the biographies of Abbagnato and Monica Bellucci. Who, having arrived from a small village for a modeling shoot, was intimidated by the city. When she chose to live there as an adult, that beauty welcomed her, opening up an international career for her. «We are recognized as having great managerial ability: a Frenchman has no problem entrusting his brand to an Italian because he knows he is putting it in excellent hands. Renault has chosen Luca de Meo as CEO. Bernard Arnault, the richest man in France, had no doubts in identifying Pietro Beccari as president and CEO of Louis Vuitton” continues the author of Les Italiens.
Giambattista Valli opened his brand in Paris almost twenty years ago: he dined alone at the beginning, he, a Roman, used to large tables. But he was aware of how his idea of ”couture” could only be realized in France. Today, he is one of the few non-French members of the Chambre Syndicate de la Haute Couture. «France is a land of opportunities, like a big family we argue, but then we are better together. The French respect us, but we have an unjustified inferiority complex: as I wanted to demonstrate in this book, we have as much class and talent as them” concludes Maltese.
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