The woman who seduced the great Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio and would become the muse for the greatest artists of her time is celebrated in an exhibition in Venice.
Born in 1881, Luisa Casati was an heiress, a muse, a patron of the arts, a woman who was quoted as saying, "I want to be a living work of art". Her famous eccentricities, over-the-top acts, exaggerated make-up and flashy attire dominated and delighted European society for nearly three decades in the early part of the 19th century.
Through paintings, drawings, jewels, sculptures and photographs on loan from private collections and international museums, “The Divine Marchesa - Art and life of Luisa Casati from the Belle Époque to the Spree Years” examines the social and artistic relationships that shaped the marchesa’s life: from her transgressive attitude to her encounter with D’Annunzio, which changed her forever, developing into a love affair and a friendship that lasted her whole life; from her eccentricities to her masquerades and fascination with the supernatural; from her “Futurist” period, when she met Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and embraced the cause of the artistic movement, promoting the artists and collecting their works, to her eventual financial ruin and self-imposed exile in London, where she died in 1957.
The exhibition, held on three floors of Palazzo Fortuny, the Venice palace she loved so much, allows visitors to immerse themselves into the atmosphere of Luisa Casati’s life.
The exhibition is open until March 8, 2015.
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Read our feature about Gabriele D'Annunzio's unusual house on Lake Garda, "D'Annunzio and Il Vittoriale Degli Italiani: A Poet’s Fantasy".
