TURNER. The Enchantment of Lake Como and the Italian Landscape
English and Italian translation of the exhibition wall texts and of the catalogue published by Moebius.
Como, Palazzo del Broletto and Pinacoteca civica, 29 May – 27 September 2026
TURNER. The Enchantment of Lake Como and the Italian Landscape, curated by Elizabeth Brooke and organized by the Municipality of Como and the Tate, is held at the Palazzo del Broletto and the Pinacoteca Civica.
The exhibition highlights the importance of travel in the artistic formation of William Turner, focusing on the role of the Italian landscape—particularly Lake Como—in the development of his artistic practice.
At the Palazzo del Broletto, seven watercolours devoted to Como and its lake are on display, documenting the artist’s stylistic development: from sketches made during his first journey to Italy in 1819, attentive to topographical structure yet already oriented towards atmospheric effects, to the illustrations for the 1830 edition of Italy by Samuel Rogers, and finally to the colour studies produced during his stays in 1842 and 1843, focused on light, colour, and the dissolution of form within the landscape.
The exhibition also includes a screening of the film JMW Turner On the Wing, which traces the artist’s life and career through his travels, featuring interviews with scholars and images of the places that inspired him, from Wales to the Alps, from Italy to Margate.
The Pinacoteca Civica instead hosts four oil paintings devoted to Italian themes, presented in an exhibition path that explores classical and literary references, light as both a structural and metaphysical element, and William Turner’s progressive move towards abstraction.
In the Campo Quadro space, a selection of nineteenth-century paintings, prints, and maps from the Civic Museums of Como reconstructs the city visited by William Turner. Among them is the Pianta guida della Città e Borghi of 1871, which lists the hotel “Volta (formerly Dell’Angelo)”, where the artist stayed and from which he painted what is now Piazza Cavour, then the site of the old harbour.