Casorati
Palazzo Reale, Milan
From February 15th until June 29th, 2025
Felice Casorati, one of the twentieth century’s greatest artists, is known for his rigorous formalism and psychological depth, expressed through interiors, frozen figures, and dreamlike atmospheres. Casorati – the title of his latest exhibition at Palazzo Reale in Milan, on view from February 15 through the end of June – captures the artist’s layered complexity. Minimalist yet commanding, the title itself is a statement – this is Felice Casorati, unveiled in all his measured control and luminous realism.
His work is a delicate balance of structure and reverie, order and introspection, with compositions that are meticulous yet deeply personal. Bringing together over a hundred works, this retrospective marks Casorati’s return to Milan after 35 years. Curated by Giorgina Bartolini, Fernando Mazzocca, and Francesco Poli, the exhibition highlights the artist’s compositional intelligence: elongated figures locked in contemplation, architectural precision verging on the metaphysical, and an ever-present sense of staged silence.
opening image: Conversazione platonica, 1925. Collezione privata. © Felice Casorati by SIAE.
Photo Credit: Pino Dell’Aquila.
© Felice Casorati by SIAE.
Fondazione Guido e Ettore De Fornaris.Photo Credit: Studio Fotografico Gonella 2023.
© Felice Casorati by SIAE.
© Felice Casorati by SIAE.
“I wish I could evoke the sweetness of capturing on canvas ecstatic yet still souls, motionless objects, lingering gazes, deep, lucid thoughts – a life of joy without vertigo, a life of sorrow without anguish.”
“His interiors with figures, vertiginous in perspective, become emblematic representations of existential unease and a distinctly modern metaphysical anxiety,” notes curator Fernando Mazzocca. Casorati’s magic and modernity lie in his ability to elevate simple scenes and humble objects into something heightened, imbued with an acute intellectual clarity and an almost mathematical sense of balance. His compositions become archetypes of a suspended existence, straddling between reality and illusion, life and dream, existential unease and impeccable rationality.
Casorati’s work is both cerebral and deeply emotive. His style emerges as a synthesis of early 20th-century Symbolism, influenced by Gustav Klimt, and the realism of the 1920s, culminating in the haunting poise of Magical Realism. This interplay of influences is reconfigured into intellectual control and emotional restraint, creating an artistic tension that is both accessible and impenetrable.
The exhibition traces the phases of Casorati’s career, from his Symbolist origins to a more distilled aesthetic. Among the highlights is the hypnotic Silvana Cenni (1922), which reflects his fascination with the compositional purity of early Renaissance Italian painting. Meriggio (1923), guides the viewer through an orchestrated interplay of figures and objects, transforming silence into something tangible. Another gem is the rare display of Annunciazione (1927), long hidden in a private collection, which intertwines sacred themes with domestic intimacy. Casorati’s practice also extended beyond the canvas. His collaborations with Teatro alla Scala in Milan as a set designer reveal a mind attuned to the theatrics of space and movement.
Casorati’s legacy is one of images so carefully composed that they exist in a world apart. This exhibition honors his mastery while revealing the solitude that permeates his vision. His figures, so meticulously drawn, are poised within the exacting framework of his imagination. In the end, Casorati does not seek to decode his subjects, nor do they seek to explain themselves. Instead, they remain as he painted them – inside their staged dream, elegantly untouchable, forever suspended between past and present, reality and artifice, like actors caught in the final, breathless pause before the curtain falls.
For further information visit palazzorealemilano.it.
Photo Credit: Pino Dell’Aquila.
© Felice Casorati by SIAE.
Photo Credit: Archivio fotografico del Museo Revoltella - Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Trieste.
© Felice Casorati by SIAE.
Photo Credit: Giuseppe e Luciano Malcangi.
© Felice Casorati by SIAE.
Photo Credit: Andrea Guermani.
© Felice Casorati by SIAE.
