Whatever the weather may be outside the walls of the Palazzo, cloudy or bright, these works remain with you, like a book you’ve read, an engaging film, or a profound conversation. They linger, weaving themselves into your everyday thoughts, resurfacing again and again over the following days.

There are many beautiful works of art, things we admire, talk about, that may move us slightly or deeply. And then there are those who can change you. Change your perception of reality and offer new perspectives.

If you are open to such transformations, you may find them at the Palazzo Reale, at the exhibition Anselm Kiefer: Le Alchimiste.

The venue, the atmosphere, the immense 42 large-scale powerful paintings, each exceeding five meters in height and up to four meters in width, the way you can move through the space, almost getting lost among the paintings, and then suddenly finding yourself alone with a single work.

As you gaze at the surfaces, their textures and materials, gold, lead, ash, plants, and other organic elements, you feel as though you are sinking into them, immersing yourself beneath the layers of paint, almost hearing the sound of brushstrokes as the artist applied them.

You wander through the hall, which amplifies the sense of time itself, observing the works while catching your reflection in the smoky, expansive mirrors alongside the paintings. You move on to new pieces, then return to the previous ones, realizing that it’s not enough, you want to absorb more. And then, you meet the gaze of other visitors, who, like you, are not yet ready to leave.

An exhibition that intrigues you so deeply that it seems to rearrange all external circumstances, so that your location suddenly and almost inevitably shifts to Italy, Milan.

This is about Anselm Kiefer: Le Alchimiste, held in the Sala delle Cariatidi at the Palazzo Reale. Anselm Kiefer is one of the most influential and compelling contemporary artists (b. 1945, Germany), associated with Neo-Expressionism. His work intertwines art with philosophy, literature, history, and spirituality, a kind of painting that speaks about memory and transformation.

The exhibition Le Alchimiste explores the resilience of human knowledge and female memory, celebrating women alchemists and thinkers, such as Isabella Cortese, Caterina Sforza, and Rebecca Vaughan, whose contributions to science were erased.

If you search through your past emotional experiences of exhibitions, you may find that nothing quite compares.