The exhibition presents a selection of works from the nineteenth century to contemporary art, showing that Italy has always been a popular destination for travellers and an eternal motif and theme for artists in Hungary. The exhibition, which is part of the Bartók Spring International Art Weeks, presents around 150 works by 75 artists, including paintings, prints, photographs, sculptures, objects, and archaeological artefacts. Flavours, scents, lights, melodies, and history. People from all over the world have made pilgrimages to Italy for centuries: some are drawn by the salt tang of the sea, the sunlight that bathes the landscape in a golden mist, the aromas of coffee and wine. Others are attracted by the relics of antiquity or Christianity, the exemplary masterpieces of Renaissance and baroque architecture, and the art emanating from its museums and churches. The Italian experience and the dolce vita are a collection of impressions and experiences that change depending on the period and the individual, and that have been a constant source of inspiration for Hungarian artists. Through a selection encompassing the last two hundred years, the exhibition shows what Italy has meant and given to Hungarian artists. Experiencing Italy was the dream of travelers participating in the Grand Tour in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as aspiring young artists. For modern Hungarian painters, Italy was – as János Vaszary put it – “is everywhere colour, light, movement, and life”. Nineteenth-century Hungarian artists sometimes made pilgrimages to Italy at great personal sacrifice, drawn by the Italian academies with their long history and the masterpieces of the Old Masters, Raphael, Titian, and Caravaggio, which could be studied in museums and churches. Antal Ligeti travelled around the country and captured his own experiences of the landscape on canvas, while Károly Markó the Elder chose Italy as his second home, providing an inexhaustible source of inspiration for his painting. In addition to the Italian landscape, the iconic works of antiquity, and the cult of the Renaissance – the mythical landscapes of Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka and the Dante paintings of Lajos Gulácsy –, everyday themes, typical characters, and scenes of city life also appear in the paintings, graphics, sculptures, and photographs. Instead of searching for grand motifs and painting typical elements, twentieth-century artists captured everyday life in Italy through loose, gestural depictions of landscape details and contemporary architecture. In the expressive paintings of Vilmos Aba-Novák and Aurél Bernáth, the competing blue patches of the sea and the sky create the mood of the landscape, while in the works of János Vaszary, it is the cheerful, vibrant bustle of the seaside beaches that sets the tone. The Italian experience and the classical ideal of the Italian landscape were condensed in Hungarian art into a visual essence that also inspired the depiction of domestic themes. In the paintings of Antal Ligeti and József Egry, southern light effects make it home in a distinctively Hungarian panorama, the landscapes of the Lake Balaton and Danube, while in the works of Károly Patkó and Jenő Medveczky, bathing in the Balaton becomes the Hungarian version of scenes of the Lido. The longing for the sweet life emerged as pop-cultural topos, but the concept of la dolce vita is not just a clichéd metaphor for joie de vivre. The exhibition highlights that the dolce vita phenomenon can be reflected in a sunny fantasy, in the activities of artists in Italy, living their bohemian period, or in Emese Benczúr’s vibrant Dolce Vita tableau made of colourful candy wrappers: sweets consumed for the sake of art. Curator of the exhibition: Adrienn Prágai 1/6 ×