«Febbre moderna». Strategie di visione della cittá impressionista

Abstract

This speech wants to underline the role of the impressionist painting – usually associated to the en plein air style depicting the countryside of Paris - in representing the so called “cultural landscape” of the modern city. This role is not only linked to the important development of topics and subjects related to the new urban scenarios ( night life, boulevards, new crafts ... ) but concerns a new kind of perception of the city drastically modified by Haussmann’s demolitions. The new pictorial techniques - developed by the impressionists - intend to define the instable vision of the city and guide the viewer into a positive and qualifying narrations of the urban landscape: the crowd, the decentralization of the city life, the transito-ry and superimposed images caught from the omnibus, the new point of view from the rooftops felt as something accepted and related with the new topography of the city… in that sense, as Mallarmé and Huysmans noticed, Impressionism builds over a new image of the modern city.