The bridges of art
The bridge is an element that touches many disciplines: starting from architecture, moving to philosophy and to other disciplines. Many great Art History masters have spoken about bridges. In 2021, Webuild wanted to give birth to one of these.
Not just an infrastructure typically built by the Group, but in this case, a magical project of an artist: Olivier Grossetête. For five days, an 18-metre-long cardboard bridge built with the participation of citizens, symbolically joined Palazzo Farnese (the headquarters of the French Embassy in Rome) to Villa Farnesina (a historical building in Italy that today is the headquarters of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
The bridge was suspended over the Tiber, with three large helium balloons that were 6 metre in diameter. The fruit of the genius of the French artist, it was inspired by Michelangelo's original project, who imagined connecting the two residencies of the Farnese family. When Pope Paul III died, the project was abandoned.
It was brought to life again for this occasion, even if only temporarily, through the work of art promoted by the French Embassy and the Institut français Italia, and Webuild's support, in collaboration with Villa Farnesina-Accademia dei Lincei that made available the spaces of Auditorium to create the collective lab that allowed, from July 8 to July 12, 2021, to build the Farnese Bridge.
A bridge between the ages
(2021)
What are the most famous bridges in Art History?
We selected a few. Which would you add to the list?
Renoir, Le Pont-Neuf, 1872
A beautiful view from above of the Parisian bridge: a man with a stick and a yellow hat can be seen on the left. This is Renoir's brother. The painter sent him on the bridge to slow down passers by.
Vincent van Gogh – Pont de Langlois, 1888
Van Gogh also loved to paint bridges. And this, he loved particularly and dedicates a series of paintings to it.
Pissarro Pont Boieldieu a Rouen, 1896
An 1896 painting of Camille Pissarro, a maestro of the Impressionism movement. He painted others of this bridge, but of others nearby. He loved those places.
Claude Monet: Le Bassin aux nymphéas, harmonie verte, 1899
Monet painted many bridges. This, however, is the most iconic as it looks down on the nymphs that made everybody love this great artist
René Magritte. Bridge Heraclitus, 1935
This bridge was painted by the illusionist master Magritte. A bridge that could live in our dreams: is it really interrupted? Is it hidden? The half on the left is not there, but can be seen reflected.
Christo and Jeanne Claude, Pont Neuf, 1985
Like all their other works, this too is a temporary work, so we can just admire it in a photo. Christo and Jeanne Claude have "packaged" many monuments and buildings in their lives, but few installations were so talked about like this one. The once President of the French Republic Francois Mitterrand and the at-the-time mayor of Paris Jacques Chirac gave them the permit to create this work of art.
