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| Room 13 - A parenthesis: the novel charm of the changing metropolis and the Scapigliati’s invention of cityscapes.
In the sixties Milan began to be the theater of drastic changes that were to revolution the perception of the city and the daily life of its inhabitants. Through huge city planning projects and impressive technological advances, Milanin (quaint Milan) to use a famous expression of the nostalgic writer Emilio De Marchi - became Milanon (the Metropolis Milan).
Of all the metamorphoses that can come to mind one is more revealing: the attempted electrical lighting of piazza Duomo on February 1st 1877, which was realized using a large beacon.
The experiment was repeated on March 18th.
The journalist of the Illustrazione Italiana wrote « the square was bursting with crowds: the electrical light dazzled like flickering Bengal fire works .The light was bright as a moonlight on the Bosporus and irradiated quite far.»
Soon night life was revolutionizing the daily routine of the Milanese. Brotherhoods of artists took part of those changes in being more outside: they lived more in the streets, no longer only in the privacy of their own hom: they frequented the osterie, the café’s, the theatres, and all these places helped them to feed the city mythology.
It is in the sixties – and not by chance – that the perception city topography give birth to cityscapes.
Substituting the «vedute », rooted in a romantic interpretation typical of early nineteenth century, these cityscapes reveal the Scapigliati approach to this new world.
They are a transcription of the here and now, in which the figures have become protagonists.
Coming out of Church marks a breakthrough in Mose’ Bianchi’s painting career: with this paintings he opened the way to a new genre of which he would remain an unsurpassable master.
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