Further, further into the unknown. The Journeys of an Artist. Guido Boggiani

Alongside the works depicting scenes around Lake Maggiore, illustrating a pure Lombard naturalism, private loans and the majestic triptych “Il Pan di Zucchero” from the Giannoni Gallery in Novara will be displayed. This triptych, painted directly in the Paraguayan Chaco forest, is the last known work of the artist.

Guido Boggiani, born in Omegna but raised in Stresa, was an accomplished artist from a young age. He moved to Rome to broaden his experiences following numerous accolades. During his stay, while remaining true to the relationship with reality and the landscape theme, Boggiani developed connections with cultural movements aimed at the renewal of the arts. In this context, the birth of his friendship with Gabriele D’Annunzio and Edoardo Scarfoglio, documented in the exhibition, took place. With D’Annunzio, Scarfoglio, Pasquale Masciantonio, and Georges Hérelle, Boggiani shared the famous cruise on the yacht Fantasia, a sea voyage to Greece and Southern Italy in the summer of 1895. The artist, who abruptly changed his life’s course, eventually became an important ethnographer and disappeared at the age of forty in October 1901 in the Chaco forest during one of his explorations.

The title of the exhibition is a quote from D’Annunzio’s poem Maia, published in 1903, where he dedicates heartfelt words to his friend Boggiani, describing him as an Odysseus driven by a thirst for knowledge to venture ever

“Further, further into the unknown”