Summary
The fair was open from 29 April to 19 November 1911, and had 7,409,145 visitors. [1] The participating countries included Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, England, Russia, Serbia, Spain, USA, Hungary and Italy. [2] The event was solemn, and aware of the new trends in criticism and art. The organizing committee included critics and artist-intellectuals such as Bernard Berenson, Camillo Boito, Walter Crane, Benedetto Croce, Roger Fry, Domenico Gnoli, and Victor Horta.
The Exposition included: a regional and ethnographic exhibition in Piazza d'Armi (the future Della Vittoria district), featuring buildings by Marcello Piacentini and regional pavilions; an international fine arts exhibition in Valle Giulia, featuring Cesare Bazzani's building (now the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna) and pavilions from many countries, including the United States, England, Serbia, Japan, France, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Germany and Russia; an archaeological exhibition at the Baths of Diocletian, directed by Rodolfo Lanciani; retrospective art exhibitions at Castel Sant'Angelo; an exhibition on the Roman countryside near the Tiber.
The Fine Arts section was held in Valle Giulia, between Villa Giulia and Villa Borghese. This area, known as Vigna Cartoni until then, had previously been used for agriculture. In preparation for the event, a team of architects led by Cesare Bazzani drastically modified the entire area, giving it a public function and creating a road system where there had previously been none. The Palazzo delle Esposizioni, now home to the National Gallery, as well as the Ponte del Risorgimento and the Viale delle Belle Arti, were all built during those years.
National pavilions
The British Pavilion, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was built in the English Baroque style, drawing inspiration from St Paul's Cathedral. At the time, it was the most extensive exhibition of British art on the continent, significantly larger than the British art exhibition at the 1900 Paris Expo. [4] It featured over 1,200 oil paintings by renowned British artists, including the Pre-Raphaelites, Aubrey Beardsley, Charles Ricketts, and Charles Shannon. [4] In 1912 the building was taken over by the British School at Rome, which is still based there. [5] The centrepiece of the Austrian Pavilion was the Klimt Hall. Due to its semicircular shape and almost sacred aura, it was often referred to in the press as the 'tempietto' or 'apse'. Inside, Klimt exhibited eight paintings and four drawings, including portraits, landscapes and allegorical subjects. These include the renowned painting The Kiss , portraits of Mrs Wittgenstein and Emilie Louise Flöge, and two elaborate Symbolist works: Death and Life and the elegantly stylised Water Serpents I (also known as The Sisters). [6] The Serbian pavilion was designed by Petar Bajalović. Several Serbian and regional artists presented their works, including Marko Murat, Ivan Meštrović, Dragomir Arambašić, Đorđe Jovanović, Toma Rosandić. [7]
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