Mariano Fortuny Vs Roberto Capucci

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The early May Bank Holiday break is drawing near and if you can afford it or you happen to be around Venice even for just a weekend, you have time until 4th May to go and visit the "Roberto Capucci at Palazzo Fortuny" exhibition.

The Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia is paying homage with this event to Capucci through thirty dress-sculptures, created between 1978 and 2009, and showcased at the Fortuny Museum.

If you are planning to stay in Venice for a longer time, prepare in advance and try to organise a personal "Fortuny tour": on 2nd May Fortuny fans will celebrate the 60th anniversary of his death, so a trip entirely dedicated to this talented artist would be the perfect way to pay homage to him.

If you don’t have time and money, don’t despair, but read on, and, maybe this double post dedicated to Fortuny and Capucci will conjure up for you a bit of Venetian magic. Let our trip start then!

Mariano Fortuny: notes on his life (plus some tourist tips)

Born in Granada in 1871, Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo was the second child of Mariano Fortuny y Marsal and Cecilia de Madrazo Garreta.

When his father died in 1874 in Rome, Cecilia moved the family to Paris where her brother Raymundo de Madrazo lived.

Mariano grew up in the French capital surrounded by art and soon developed also an interest for the world of theatres. Electric lighting and the theatrical applications of electricity occupied his thoughts, but also stage sets and decoration interested him.

In 1889, Cecilia moved back the family to Venice, taking up residence in Palazzo Martinengo, on the Gran Canal, near the San Gregorio Church. The palazzo soon became a meeting place for many literati and artists and Mariano continued his painting studies while developing further interest in photography and stage sets.

At the end of the 1890s he started exhibiting his paintings publicly, first at the 7th International Exposition in Munich, then at the 3rd Venice Biennale and at the Societé Nationale de Beaux-Arts in Paris.

In 1899, he designed the scenes for an operetta at Countess Albrizzi’s private theatre in San Polo. He was so successful in this task that Giuseppe Giacosa, the Puccini librettist, suggested him to prepare the sketches for Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde that opened in December 1900 at La Scala.

Fortuny worked on the scenes and costumes from his new studio, a workshop on the top floor of Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei, and even attempted to implement parts of La Scala lighting system. The staging was very successful and Fortuny went to Berlin and Paris to obtain recognition of his innovations.

While in Paris he also created the “Fortuny Dome”, a concave device that could be used to enhance the depth effect of the stage set.

In the following years he concentrated on stage lighting and costumes and the restructuring of the Countess of Béarn’s private theatre, that featured his famous “dome” and a velvet stage curtain decorated with a fabric-printing technique that would made Fortuny famous in the following years.

The Countess’s theatre opened in 1906 and the new and innovative dome installed in it amazed many visitors, even foreign ones and soon the German company AEG got in touch with Fortuny to start selling his stage lighting systems.

In 1907 Fortuny produced his first item of clothing, the Knossos scarf that featured prints applied to it by means of wooden plates.

Researches into fabrics continued and soon he developed a technique for printing on silk and velvet.

While working on further theatre projects, Fortuny focused on experimenting on new chromatic ranges and fabric printing, inspired in his search for new and exciting colours by masters such as Titian and Tintoretto and infusing in his textile designs influences from China, Japan, Persia, Turkey, Northern Africa and Spain.

A few years after, in 1909, Fortuny registered a pleated silk fabric made with a machine he had invented. In the same year he patented a process for polychromatic printing on fabric and paper and, in November, he launched the Delphos Gown, a garment inspired by ancient Greek sculpture.

At the 1911 Decorative Arts Exposition in the Pavillon de Marsan of the Louvre, Fortuny exhibited dresses, tunics and scarves and soon success arrived, also thanks to many celebrities of the time, among them Eleonora Duse, Isadora Duncan, and the Marchesa Casati, who all favoured Fortuny’s designs.

With over 100 workers creating his pieces in the workshop at Palazzo degli Orfei, Fortuny’s production output increased. He opened a boutique in Paris and another in London and even showcased his fabrics in 1914 in New York, but World War I slowed down his work and researches.

It was only after the War ended that he managed to start his textile business again in partnership with Giancarlo Stucky.

Together with him he opened a new factory on the island of Giudecca and founded the Società Anonima Fortuny.

Tourist Tip 1: Giudecca can be reached by getting the N. 41 vaporetto just outside Venice Santa Lucia’s railway station. The Stucky flour mill has currently been turned into a 5 star hotel, but the Fortuny factory is still open and still creates printed cottons for interior decoration on machines designed by Fortuny himself.

This is the only factory in the world that knows how to obtain these precious fabrics and preserves the secret for his peculiar printing technique. You’ll see the Fortuny factory from the vaporetto as you arrive at the first Giudecca stop, “Palanca”. Visitors are not allowed in the factory inner sanctum but the showroom is open from Monday to Friday, so just ring the doorbell and you will be allowed in the showroom.

Here you will find rolls and rolls of decorative fabrics for interiors in different colours, from mauve to intense blue, from bright red to pale yellow. Prices vary and one metre of fabric can even reach €500. If you are after a small souvenir you can buy a notebook with a beautiful cover in Fortuny fabric (prices start from around €50). NB There are quite a few companies in and around Venice that reproduce Fortuny textiles and motifs, but this is the only factory that produces fabrics with the original method, so if you want a genuine Fortuny souvenir this is THE place where you can get it.

Fortuny started producing interior design fabrics from the 1920s: his creations were used to decorate famous residences such as the house of actress Dina Galli and of the Princess of Noailles, and also hotel rooms, ships, museums and churches.

In 1924 Fortuny married in Paris Henriette Nigrin, who inspired him throughout his life, and the years that followed were quite successful for him as his paintings were exhibited at different art events, his costumes and stage sets appeared in various plays and he also received new commissions for his stage lighting systems.

In the early 30s he took out a patent for a carbon-pigment photographic paper he had invented, began selling his tempera paints created with a secret formula and took permanent possession of Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei in Venice. Fortuny continued working on his stage lighting systems and costumes and died in Venice on 2nd May 1949.

Palazzo Fortuny (plus some tourist tips)

Tourist Tip 2: The Palazzo is near La Fenice Theatre, but get a map to avoid getting lost. The ticket office doesn't accept any credit/debit cards, so make sure you have some cash with you. Once you get at the Palazzo, stand in front of it for a while, admiring the façade and studying its architecture and flowery decorations and arabesques around the corners of the balconies.

Though the building was started in the mid-15th century, its architecture bears the signs of a long process of transformation that continued during many centuries.

The main style is late Gothic, though some elements remind of Mauro Codussi’s Renaissance edifices.

Among the most beautiful features of the palazzo there are the huge seven-light mullioned windows and a deep Venetian portego. Access to the ground floor is from Campo San Beneto, via a beautiful Gothic portal with a flat architrave.

The palazzo was used from the late 1700s to host two different philharmonic academies that organised in it concerts and performances.

When Fortuny took possession of the building the palazzo had been divided in different apartments that were rented out, so he had to start a long restoration work to allow the building to regain its monumental dimensions and the proportions of its space.

Rooms and spaces were transformed by Mariano and Henriette into workshops where Fortuny’s experimental products were created. Spaces were filled up with objects or pieces of furniture Mariano created, from curved shelving to easel-benches for painting and drawing, working tables, reading desks and lamps.

The first floor of the palazzo was transformed into a space for living and working, while the second floor portego and the attic were used by the workers to produce Fortuny’s famous fabrics and costumes.

Nowadays it's not possible to visit Fortuny’s studio: its entrance is indeed protected by a glass screen through which visitors can admire his books, presses, photographic equipment, vials of colours and cases. Everything is perfectly preserved and stacked upon the shelves and the spirit of the alchemist who once lived and worked here seems to still be haunting this magic world.

Roberto Capucci at Palazzo Fortuny (plus final tourist tip)

“Of all the outdoor and indoor gowns that Mme. De Guermantes wore, those which seemed most to respond to a definite intention, to be endowed with a special significance, were the garments made by Fortuny from old Venetian models. Is it their historical character, is it rather the fact that each one of them is unique that gives them so special a significance that the pose of the woman who is wearing one while she waits for you to appear or while she talks to you assumes exceptional importance, as though the costume had been the fruit of a long deliberation and your conversation was detached from the current of everyday life like a scene in a novel?” Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past – The Captive

Fortuny was a technical innovator, a talented artist with a passion for colours, a painter who also made dresses. In the same way Capucci is an architect and a sculptor, a creator of forms and, ultimately, a designer.

Fortuny was a painter, but Capucci’s colours come from artists such as Beato Angelico, Pisanello, Benozzo Gozzoli and Paolo Uccello, while his velvets and sartorial details evoke the clothes seen in paintings by Carpaccio, Titian, Tintoretto and Tiepolo.

This art-fashion connection is what links Fortuny and Capucci, and it's also the main idea behind this exhibition, curated by Daniela Ferretti, Enrico Minio and Milly Passigli.

Yet there are further points in common between the two artists, first and foremost the fact that the starting point for Fortuny’s designs was fabric – be it silk, cotton, linen, velvet, pongee, gauze or light satin – that he dyed, printed, pleated and embossed.

Capucci also starts from a piece of fabric, that he pleats, bends and transforms, creating contrasts of volumes, three dimensional folds and shadows, wearable structures that wrap up the body.

The exploration of Capucci’s work and sartorial prowess starts from the ground floor with a mikado silk wedding dress in two shades of red silk, an embroidered top and ample trail. Two voluminous wings jut out from the hips and a golden tulle veil covers the head, gently falling on the shoulders, the back and the trail.

Before going up the staircase that leads from the bookshop to the first floor, you encounter a green sculpture-dress in pleated matelasse taffeta with box-like green sleeves lined with bright fuchsia and red fabric that resemble two huge flowers.

Stepping into the main room of the first floor is a bit like being transported into a strange and exotic land: Capucci’s creations are showcased among Fortuny’s pieces of furniture and objects, plaster casts of statues, lamps, paintings and portraits.

There are chairs and folding tables, custom-made etageres, painter’s easels and souvenirs from far-away lands such as precious daggers and an elephant’s ear.

Some paintings reveal Fortuny’s inspirations - from German and Wagnerian mythology to Giorgione or Titian - while the objects around the main room illustrate Fortuny’s genius, Capucci’s gowns are tangible proof of the latter's talents.

In this space you can admire a fuchsia and turquoise dress with a pagoda-like trail, the iconic 80s black dress with green lined cape-like sleeves and central mask; a multi-layered gold and silver lame dress with baroque waves on the sides that form a snail-like motif, a wedding dress inspired by Tiepolo in yellow ermesin taffeta with a dark pink and green trail and a black velvet number surrounded by minutely pleated spires of fabric.

The plant kingdom inspired a black velvet dress framed by two waves of satin leaves in dark Autumnal shades; the natural elements are evoked in a wave-like dress in different shades of green mikado silk with fuchsia lining (water) and in a red sauvage silk dress with a skirt created by pleated motifs tending upwards (fire).

The red silk “Ventaglio” dress with pleated wings that open up like a huge fan, Capucci's symbol of creative freedom, is showcased near the “Baroque Angel” dress, in pleated gold lame with two voluminous wings at the back.

In some cases the sculpture-dresses in bright colours contrast with the more delicate nuances of the paintings and fabrics that surround them, in others they seem to engage in a dialogue with them.

A 1989 orange and red pleated dress for example stands in front of glass displays that protect capes and textiles by Fortuny, while two clay coloured ermesin taffeta dresses with finely pleated trails are surrounded by Fortuny’s photographs, the colours of the images evoking the shades of the dresses.

Fortuny left us 12,000 negatives on glass plates and film. Some of the most beautiful images are unconventional photographs of Venice, with local women walking around the streets, going about their domestic routines. A few of these images are used as a background for the Capucci exhibition.

There are images of nude models used for painting studies; an iconic portrait of Giorgia Clementi wearing a hat, the contours of her face almost erased by a veil; Henriette is portrayed wearing the Delphos gown and the Marchesa Casati is shown in an extravagantly exotic dress at a party at Ca’ Venier dei Leoni with painter Giovanni Boldini at her side (1913).

On the first floor a glass cabinet displays precious sculpture-jewels by the Valenza-based Vhernier jewellery company.

Founded 25 years ago, Vhernier is famous for producing unique pieces with futurist and geometric lines, architectural earrings and bangles or animal-shaped brooches that evoke in their colours and forms Capucci's work.

On the second floor you are greeted by an early 80s design, a black and white creation with a huge red bow at the back and a big red coral like fibreglass mask on the front, completed by a futuristic headdress.

The designs on this floor are proof of Capucci’s continuous experimentation with geometrical patterns, architectural forms and contemporary art.

Capucci’s pink dress with multi-coloured pleated panels on the hips is for example showcased near the works of Lucio Fontana whose slashes are evoked in a fuchsia number with a green edged slash revealing a bright orange lining.

A black and white dress representing an exuberant orchid is instead exhibited next to Andy Warhol’s diamond dust shoe paintings and a black taffeta dress with a skirt that features hundreds of multi-coloured fabric “blades” that open up like a book, creating an amazing movement, stands next to Eduard Angeli’s “Lighthouse” painting.

Tourist Tip 3 (for designers and artists): On the second floor there is a big wooden table set in front of two tall windows with a wonderful view of the roofs of the nearby palazzi.

If there is an exhibition there are usually a couple of catalogues lying around (in the case of the Capucci exhibition, there is also a copy of his notebooks with plenty of sketches and drafts by the designer himself that allow the visitor to discover the background research behind various designs) and visitors can stop and leaf through them for a while.

Since photographs are not allowed, bring a pad or a notebook with you and draw, take notes or simply sit for a few minutes looking out of the windows and be inspired. Try to make the most of your visit, by looking around yourself and exploring the important relationship between the colours in Fortuny’s paintings and in his materials.

Before leaving have a final look at the bookshop that offers exhibition catalogues and a good selection of books about fashion (both in Italian and English).

As I said there are still a few days to enjoy the Capucci exhibition, but if you don’t manage to see it, remember that the Fortuny Museum is always open and usually hosts very interesting events that combine art and fashion.