Notes on the foreign sections at the first Venice Biennials. French painters and impressionism

Abstract

The analysis of French participation in the Venice Biennials cannot but start from the long-lasting polemic debate about the absence of Impressionists: a controversy started by Soffici in “La Voce” magazine – both supported by Barbantini and artists from Ca’ Pesaro – that will be counterbalanced on the occasion of the first Biennial edition after WWII in 1948, nearly paying off debt to the French figurative culture.

However, to passively uniform to this right claim for the delay of Italian critic in understanding the French renewal it would be a risk, since the French attendance to Biennials depended on the choices by Salons and French Academy in Rome, where Albert Besnard selected painting and sculpture according to a balance between several figures and institutions, often connected to an image of French grandeur.

Anyway we can identify a small allowance of renewal within the selection: in effect few Impressionist’s works were displayed at Venice Biennial in 1897, 1903, and 1905.