Viva Roma ! Artists and the Trip to Rome.

hardcover; 250 x 205 mm, 160 pages, 120 colour illustrations . Exhibition held at La Boverie, Liege. English text. . ISBN 9789461614582. Summary: Built from stone, founded on dreams, Rome is a city of contrasts, the epicentre of an ancient empire; it's a religious metropolis and the capital of the Italian nation, a timeless city that for centuries it was essential to visit to mould one's intellect and moral fibre. Rome is a singular city that greatly moved all the artists who stayed there - and there were many of them. A point of convergence for European art from the 16th to the 21st century, a centre of classical, then neo-classical culture, it is apt for the Musee du Louvre to present Rome at La Boverie from a new angle: a hundred and fifty works from around fifty international institutions shedding light on the reasons why European artists travelled to and stayed in Rome. After a long journey of several weeks, the artists discovered the city they had dreamt of for so long and that they had been able to imagine from reading the many newspapers or travel guides appearing from the 18th century onwards. Foreign artists in Rome formed "taste and manners", drawing inspiration from antiquity and Italian artists whose works they copied. They developed friendships, spent time together and frequented the same inns, often sharing the same lessons and painting the same places and models. The "Viva Roma !" exhibition explores this shared culture through sections that are clear for the visitor to understand: "Discovering Antiquity", "Copying the Renaissance", "Catholic Rome", "Brigands, an artistic phenomenon", "The Forum's obsession", "The melting pot of the Medici Villa", "The people of Rome", "The light of Rome", "The Neapolitan excursion".