“Power and Pathos” at Strozzi Palace

It has opened  March 14th at Palazzo Strozzi the exhibition  “Power and Pathos: Bronzes from the Hellenistic World” curated by Jens Daehner and Kenneth Lapatin from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and in co-operation with the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici of Tuscany. 

An extraordinary exhibition dedicated to Hellenistic bronze sculptures till 21st June in Florence will showcase he development of art during the Hellenistic age, when new forms of expression began to prevail throughout the Mediterranean basin and beyond, riding on the back of an extraordinary leap forward in technological development to form the first instance of globalisation of the language of art in the known world. The use of bronze allowed artists to impart an unprecedented level of dynamism to their full-figure statues and naturalism to their portraits in which psychological expression become a hallmark of the style.

The public will admire in a single exhibition some of the most important masterpieces of  the ancient world from many of the world’s leading archaeological museums including the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Galleria degli Uffizi and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, the Georgian National Museum, the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Vatican Museums.

Monumental statues of gods, athletes, and heroes stand alongside portraits of historical figures to take visitors on a breathtaking journey exploring the fascinating stories of these masterpieces’ discovery, often at sea (Mediterranean or Black sea) but also in the course of archaeological digs, thus setting the findings in their ancient contexts like sanctuaries (used as votive offerings), private houses (where they had decorative functions), cemeteries (funerary symbols), or public spaces (as commemorations of people and events).