“Arte italiano, una huella en Chile” is the title of an exhibition to be held in Santiago de Chile from Mar. 1 to 21. The show will celebrate artists Alessandro Ciccarelli and Giovanni Mochi who, in the mid-nineteenth century became respectively the first and third directors of the newly established Academy of Fine Arts in Santiago. The works of six Italo-Chilean artists will be on show for the occasion. There will also be panel discussions on the historical perspective (Ciccarelli y el relato de la consolidación de la Republíca, Giovanni Mochi: Del realismo toscano al costumbrismo en Chile and Lectura de obras de Ciccarelli y Mochi) and on the contemporary scene (Ciccarelli Vs Mochi. Sobre los orígenes de la Academia en Chile, La Transavanguardia italiana y los ecos del último movimiento italiano en ejercer influencia en el arte chileno, De cómo se gestó el proyecto Ciccarelli + Mochi and Del Neoclasicismo de Ciccarelli al Romanticismo de Mochi).
“Arte italiano, una huella en Chile”
The events have been organised by the Italian Institute of Culture (IIC) of Santiago del Chile, in partnership with the Italian embassy and with ACHIART, the Italo-Chilean artists’ association. Ciccarelli, born in Naples in 1811, moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1840 where he was appointed the private drawing teacher of Empress Teresa Cristina of Brazil and participated in 1843 in the fourth General Exhibition of Fine Arts of the local Academy. He settled in Santiago in 1848, where he became the first director of the school (later academy) of painting, a position he held for over 20 years. He retired from public life in 1869 and died in the Chilean capital in 1879. Mochi was part of the Macchiaioli art movement at Caffé Michelangelo, and in 1875 was appointed director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Santiago, where he settled with his family for the rest of his life, sowing the seeds of Tuscan naturalism in South America.
