The walk into the Villa Borghese's beauty and the discovery of amazing places goes on in a splendid sunny end of November.
If almost everybody, in Rome, knows the Museum of the Galleria Borghese and his beautiful occupant, Pauline Bonaparte, there are a very few people that have ever heard of the much smaller but nevertheless precious Carlo Bilotti Museum (from 10h to 16h and from 10 to 19h on saturday and sunday. Monday closed), just near the lake of the park.
The museum gathers a part of the collection Carlo Bilotti that was not only a successful business man who lived between Italy and the States (until his death in 2006) and operated in the branch of cosmetics and perfumes, but also a lover of arts and a friend of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Niki de Saint Phalle and many others. Bilotti gave to the city of Rome a particularly beautiful and unusual (two portraits together) Warhol, the portrait of his wife and his daughter and, amongst other works, 18 paintings and sculptures signed Giorgio De Chirico.
If almost everybody, in Rome, knows the Museum of the Galleria Borghese and his beautiful occupant, Pauline Bonaparte, there are a very few people that have ever heard of the much smaller but nevertheless precious Carlo Bilotti Museum (from 10h to 16h and from 10 to 19h on saturday and sunday. Monday closed), just near the lake of the park.
The museum gathers a part of the collection Carlo Bilotti that was not only a successful business man who lived between Italy and the States (until his death in 2006) and operated in the branch of cosmetics and perfumes, but also a lover of arts and a friend of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Niki de Saint Phalle and many others. Bilotti gave to the city of Rome a particularly beautiful and unusual (two portraits together) Warhol, the portrait of his wife and his daughter and, amongst other works, 18 paintings and sculptures signed Giorgio De Chirico.
Giorgio De Chirico - Orfeo Solitario
A very strange place, this little museum called also the "Orangery" (before it became a museum it was a store house where the citrus trees were protected during the winter). In the eighteenth century, it had another name: the "Casino dei Giochi d'Acqua", the "House of the Water Games" and was a place dedicated to social events and parties that were the talk of the town. In 1849, during a French military intervention to reestablish the temporal power of the Pope, the "Casino" was destructed. But not entirely. When you enter in the rooms of the temporary exhibitions, an extraordinary surprise expects you: the wall of one of the rooms is a magnificent fountain, surrounded by two antique roman statues, forgotten for more than one and a half century!
Andy Warhol - Mother and Daughter
Strangely, in the front of this unexpected treasure from the past, the exhibition "Urbs Picta" that is on in this moment (until the 17th January) is related to street art: graffiti and murals painted on the grey walls and boring facades of the poorest suburbs of Rome. Sometimes, there are just sunny colors and comic's humor, but in these last years, violence, anger and even desperation are present always more often.
Thanks to the photograph Mimmo Frassineti we can see well and even better (when they are in difficult places as inside tunnels or very high on the walls) these very strong interventions of artists as Blu, Borondo, Malala and many others that are perhaps the most interesting in this moment. Much more, probably, than many of those whose "installations" are exhibit in contemporary art galleries and museums...
Thanks to the photograph Mimmo Frassineti we can see well and even better (when they are in difficult places as inside tunnels or very high on the walls) these very strong interventions of artists as Blu, Borondo, Malala and many others that are perhaps the most interesting in this moment. Much more, probably, than many of those whose "installations" are exhibit in contemporary art galleries and museums...
Ingrid Bergman by Diavu' painted in via Fiamignano Stairs
But there is another jewel at the other side of the villa Borghese, at the Pincio hill (with a magnificent panoramic view above piazza del Popolo) where you can go walking from the "Orangery", passing through via delle Magnolie. In these days, more than ever, you cannot miss the splendid Villa Medici (open every day except monday from 10 to 19). Constructed in the middle of the 16th century by the Medici from Florence, the villa became, in 1803, thanks to Napoleon, the French Academy of Rome. This institution founded by the king Louis XIV (but in another place, in palazzo Capranica) houses young French artists from all disciplines (painters, musicians, writers...) who, getting a scholarship, come to stay in Rome for six month or a year. The Villa Medici organizes also concerts and exhibitions. In this moment, until the 31 January, there is a particularly fascinating exhibition of an artist who had a very important part in the restructuration of the villa Medici in the sixties and seventies of last century, the painter Balthus (Balthazar Klossowski de Rola) who was the director of the villa from 1961 to 1977.
It is possible not only to see his paintings and drawings, very often nudes of very young girls, delicate and vanishing as a dream, but also the apartments where he lived and worked and the rooms that inspired his paintings like the famous "Chambre Turque" that is exceptionally possible to visit with a guided tour.
And after you have seen the magic Balthus in the villa you will probably want to go and see the other exhibition that is dedicated to the great artist in another beautiful place of Rome: the "Scuderie del Quirinale".
It is possible not only to see his paintings and drawings, very often nudes of very young girls, delicate and vanishing as a dream, but also the apartments where he lived and worked and the rooms that inspired his paintings like the famous "Chambre Turque" that is exceptionally possible to visit with a guided tour.
And after you have seen the magic Balthus in the villa you will probably want to go and see the other exhibition that is dedicated to the great artist in another beautiful place of Rome: the "Scuderie del Quirinale".
Villa Medici
Balthus - La Chambre Turque
But before, you have to go just beside the French Academy, to have at least a coffee at the Casina Valadier, a splendid café-restaurant from the beginning of the nineteenth century, recently renewed.
Casina Valadier
