Secession show highlights Vienna, Rome

(ANSA)- Rome, July 19 - One of the most complete exhibitions ever in Italy on the Secession movement in art will be held from September 23 until January 21 at Rovigo's Palazzo Roverella.
    The masterpieces exhibited, from some of the most important international museums, will tell not only about the most well-known aspects of the Vienna movement and the triumph of decoratism, it will also showcase the modernist trends that flourished in Munich, the visionary expressionism of the Prague-based Sursum group as well as the Rome crossroads and its continued search for new forms of expression. Entitled 'Secession. Munich, Vienna, Prague, Rome. The Wave of Modernity', the important exhibition was sponsored by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo with collaboration from such prestigious museums as the Albertina, the Klimt Foundation, the Villa Stuck museum and the National Gallery in Prague.
    Curator was Francesco Parisi, who tried to offer the public a thorough overview of the movement, which developed mainly in four European capitals, highlighting differences, affinities and meeting points between the different languages of expression. Some of the artists whose works are included and who demonstrate how this was a true European cultural exchange are Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, who exhibited at the Roman Secession shows, and Segantini, who took part in the annual Vienna exhibitions. The Palazzo Roverella exhibition will have several theme-based sections on individual cities of Europe and will open with the Munich Secession. At the very beginning in 1892, the new movement did not have a well-defined structure but soon acquired a modernist bent that was later called 'Jugendstil' and was taken part in by such artists as Franz von Stuck, Anders Zorn, Max Klinger, Max Liebermann and Ludwig von Hofmann. The focus of the entire Munich section will center mainly on the groups of works made between 1898 and 1910. The exhibit then moves on to Vienna, where the Secession began to develop in earnest in 1897 and which represented from its debut the evolution and moving on from all the previous formulas, including symbolism. Backed by the writer Ludwig Hevesi and the painter Gustav Klimt, after a few years the movement moved towards a vision of art that ws different from European Modernism and extended its influence towards the Italian and Slavic spheres. In Prague, the Secession came into being with the Manes group, which arose in the Munich academy, but later set itself the aim of reforming national Czech art. It was only in 1910 that the famous Sursum group arose, able to bring together Nabis and symbolists. The Secession of Rome (1913-1916), far from symbolist aesthetics, encouraged the development of several different languages within it. Different from futurist avantgardes, the Roman movement was more open to international influences. The First International Secession Exhibit, held in the Italian capital, proved an opportunity to see works by Matisse and Post-Impressionists for the first time, while the following year's edition included works by Cezanne and Matisse alongside Klimt and Schiele.