A Visit to the Fortuny Museum, Venice, Italy

If you follow me on Twitter and Instagram, you know that as a prelude to our visit to Milan, our BlogTour group visited the beautiful and romantic city of Venice.  One of my favorite surprises from BlogTourMilan was the discovery and tour of the Fortuny Museum in Venice with Christina Gregorin of Slow Venice Tours.

Situated in a Gothic palazzo, the building was transformed nearly 100 years ago by designer & artist Mariano Fortuny into his own photography, set-design, stagecraft, fabric-creation and painting atelier.

As an Interior Designer, I am familiar with the very lush luxury line of tapestry fabrics that Fortuny is known for.

However,  I was not familiar with the depth of talent that Mariano Fortuny possessed. The tour of his palazzo (his Think Tank) piqued my interest  and I came home and googled my heart out about everything Mariano Fortuny.

I learned that Fortuny was born in 1871 in Spain to two artists, of course. After his father died when Fortuny was 3 years old, he and his mother moved to Paris. He was always interested in textiles and as a child he would dye fabrics for amusement. But as we saw at the Fortuny Museum, he was interested in so much more as well.

In Paris,  Fortuny really developed his varied talents which included inventing, painting, photography, fashion design, sculpting, archeolology, etching and theatrical stage lighting. Amazingly, he truly became a master at most.  A true Renaissance man of the early 20th century!

In 1892, Fortuny developed a relationship with Richard Wagner, the German composer. At this time, Mariano became very fascinated with most staging aspects of theater including scenery.

“Theatrical scenery will be able to transform itself in tune with music, within the latter’s domain, that is to say in “time” whereas hitherto it, has only been able to develop in “space”.”

Krista with stage scenery by Fortuny

Perhaps Fortuny’s greatest contribution to theatre was to theatrical lighting.  Fortuny developed the idea that all the stagehands had to do was to change the controls on the lighting and the scenery would change instantly.  He experimented with lighting and found that it was not the quantity of light but the quality of light that mattered. Fortuny created a dome shape out of plaster or cloth and  found that when light was reflected off a different surface,  it was possible to the change color and intensity.

This was the genesis of the Fortuny Cyclorama.

The Fortuny Cyclorama dome and the Fortuny lamp were his greatest contributions to theater and the entire lighting industry.  It was fascinating to learn about the origin of such amazing innovations.

Perhaps it’s the artist in me, but what really struck me at the Palazzo were Fortuny’s paintings. They were amazing! Rich subjects, saturated with color. Many were nudes with skin so translucent you could almost feel it breathing. It was as if he focused on painting and only painting his entire life, so masterful are his works.

Along with Fortuny’s art and lighting, the Palazzo houses a large fabric collection.   Consisting of  fabrics, prints, materials, and ornamental clothes, these items make up a rich sample of Fortuny’s work in the field of fabrics and fashion design.   Not to missed is his famous creation: the Delphos dress.

This dress could still be so easily and stylishly worn today…the true testament of a Classic!

In fact, here is a Fortuny Delphos dress being presented by British actress Tilda Swinton at a fashion show ~ breathtaking!

via

These next photos were taken looking out  from the third floor of the Palazzo Fortuny.   I still can’t seem to get over the fact that I was looking out on the same view that the very talented Mariano Fortuny saw so many years ago.

Can you believe that between 1901 and 1934,  Fortuny registered more than 20 patents for inventions?  I can hardly fathom what kind of mind and imagination this man possessed, it is truly remarkable!  I am in awe of his seemingly countless talents.

What a lovely and inspirational visit we had to the Fortuny Museum.  Once again I must thank  Modenus and all of the BlogTour Milan sponsors for making this incredible trip possible!

xo,

Pamela

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