VATICAN MUSEUMS - COLLECTION OF RELIGIOUS MODERN ART (second part)

COLLEZIONE D’ARTE RELIGIOSA MODERNA
 

In ROOM XXXII new exhibition of the MATISSE ROOM with “Studies for the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence” 1949 by Henri Matisse (1869/1954)

The Chapel of the Rosary was his last and most important sacred work made in the years 1950/54

“The comparison of the study, kept here, for the image of the Madonna and the work actually executed demonstrates the transition from an initial figure of Byzantine style to one that finds comparisons in Chinese art. Vence's production of is for the master of Cateau Cambrésis, eighty-two at the time, the ultimate goal of a lifetime devoted to the work as he himself wrote in the publication dedicated to the chapel” (Andrea Pomella)

In the Matisse room is also exposed the colossal “Madonna in limestone” by Lucio Fontana (1899/1968)

“Christ in the Garden” by Mario Radice (1898/1987)

Pastel on paper “The Mother” by Umberto Boccioni 1907 (1882/1916)

Two decorated ceramics by Pablo Picasso (1881/1973)

Oil on canvas “El martyrdom de San Esteban” 1944 by José Clemente Orozco (1883/1949)

“He is considered, with Rivera and Siqueiros, one of the most important exponents of Mexican painting. From his early works he showed a tendency to break ties with European art to reconnect to local issues and pre-Columbian Mexico. The Mexican Revolution gave this trend a precise content of a political and social development for his effective and creative power as an artist. His work, dramatic, forceful, full of primal grandeur, found its truest expression in the numerous and monumental frescoes in Mexico City” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

Tempera on canvas “S. Martino” 1941 and “Talk: the disciples” 1936 by Mario Sironi (1885/1961)

“The three figures are imposed on the scene with the monumentality that is typical of megaliths. The matter of the pictorial is raw, unrefined, almost similar to a cave painting. The solemnity is given by the unmoving sense of suspended time that imprisons the characters within a framework of the physical limits of pictorial support” (Andrea Pomella)

“Journey to the Ecumenical Council” by the Colombian Fernando Botero (b. 1932)

Pastel on paper “Assumption” 1925 by Alberto Martini (1876/1954)

Relief in wax “Aetas Aurea” 1886 (copy made after 1895) by Medardo Rosso (1858/1928)

Oil on cardboard “Crucifixion” 1934 by Fausto Pirandello (1899/1975)

“The fall of the angel” 1963 by Marino Marini (1901/80)

Oil on canvas “La danse macabre” 1964 on paper and canvas “Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas” 1948/49 by Gino Severini (1883/1966) study for the Catholic University of Fribourg

Oil on canvas “Kruzifix” 1914 by Max Ernst (1891/1976)

“Important member of the surrealist movement: from the mixture of image and poetic words in the experiments of 'automatic writing' he created his collages and collage-novels (La femme 100 têtes, 1929; Une semaine de bonté, 1934), among the most representative works of Surrealist art. He also produced sculptures (Capricorn, 1948) and objects trouvés and created compositions and fantastic landscapes” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

Oil on canvas “Still Life” 1947 by Alberto Burri (1915/95)

“Crucifixion” 1927 by Gerardo Dottori (1884/1977)

“In 1929, along with Balla, Marinetti, Depero, Prampolini, Luigi Colombo (Fillia), M. Somenzi, Guglielmo Sansoni (Tato), he signed the aeropainting manifesto, inspired in part also by his research on the 'total' landscape. His position in the second futurism was original and detached while Prampolini and Fillia were pushing the research of the group towards a sort of “semi-surrealism”, Dottori remained true to his lyrical and contemplative images, combining the dynamism of the modern vision to the mystical sense of nature, following the pictorial tradition of central Italy “ (Valerio Rivosecchi - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

“Supper at Emmaus” 1941 by Ardengo Soffici (1879/1964)

Oil on canvas “Still life among bottles, coat and hat” 1946 and oil on canvas “Church Annunziatina in Rome” 1938 by Mario Mafai (1902/65)

“With his wife Antonietta Raphael and Scipio he was one of the creators of the 'Roman School' of painting, which was seen in 1930 as a reaction against the rhetoric of the 'Novecento' (1900s) movement by implementing a tonal painting, emotional and imaginative. After the first expressionistic paintings his style became more balanced with compositions of flowers and landscapes in which light, in the tonal relationships of color, creates forms plastically. That was his more inspired period, yet not without its tensions with the trends of contemporary art, revealing an almost underground controversy in Demolition, a series of paintings that, in the elegiac exaltation of the destroyed old houses, opposed fascist urban planning in Rome” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

Model of the gigantic sculpture (20 m - 66 feet) “Resurrection” 1970/75 for the Paul VI Hall by Pericle Fazzini (1913/87)

It was inaugurated in 1977 and, to put it together, the entire church of S. Lorenzo in Piscibus near St. Peter's Square was made available to the artist

Huge bronze bas-reliefs “The Synod” by Lello Scorzelli (1921/1997)

“The idea of these figures arose from the constant and emotional participation of the artist to the solemn ceremonies of the Council, mingling among the multitude of believers, coming up to the highest hierarchy of the Church and finally also absorbing expressions, gestures and traits of two popes” (from the Editalia publication The Bronzes of the Synod)

Colorful ceramics and “Portrait of Vrania G. (Study of a woman saint)” 1949 by Lucio Fontana (1899/1968)

Oil on canvas “Study for death” 1947 by the American Franklin Watkins (1894/1972)

Tempera on paper “Builders No. 1” 1974 by the American Jacob Lawrence (1917/2000)

“Jacob Lawrence was one of America's greatest 20th Century artists with a spectacular flair for composition and social comment. His brightly colored works are a blend of realism and abstraction and have a kindred spirit with the oeuvres of Stuart Davis and Ben Shahn, but his inventive eye places him with Monet in the pantheon of those artists gifted with infinite riches of compositional creativity” (Carter B. Horsley - www.thecityreview.com)

Colored lithograph on paper “Doves (l'oiseau traversant le nuage)” 1957 by Georges Braque (1882/1963)

“He gave life to Cubism with Picasso and Apollinaire. His activities in the period 1910/14 is characterized by extreme simplification of the figurative elements and compositions, with frequent use of 'collage'. Among the leading exponents of modern art movements, Braque is perhaps the more 'artist', i.e. the one that best knows how to incorporate into a pure formal relations profoundly moving poetry” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

Two similar works in mixed media on canvas paper: “Crucifixion” 1968 and “Crucifixion” tribute to Martin Luther King jr.” 1968 by Mirko (Mirko Basaldella) (1910/69)

Xylography printed on Japanese wooden paper "Old man in prayer" 1902 by Edvard Munch (1863/1944). He represented his father as he saw him coming home after a strong row with him

“The big dark shadow projected on the wall (...) performs the dual function of looming dark otherness and of silent partner. A presence that threats, protects an opens towards an unknown darkness. (...) Between 1897 and 1899 he retreated to Norway and dedicated himself especially to xylography, taking the achievements of Gauguin to the extreme” (Francesca Boschetti - Catalogue of the exhibit Bellezza Divina)

In the collection there are also works by:

Paul Klee (1879/1940), Felice Carena (1879/1966), Giovanni Carnovali (aka il Piccio) (1804/73), Felice Casorati (1883/1963), Henry Moore (1898/1986), Paul Gaugin (1848/1903), Francisco Goya (1746/1828), Giacomo Manzù (1908/91), Luciano Minguzzi (1911/2004), Charles-Edouard Jeanneret aka Le Corbusier (1887/1965), Vasilij Kandinskij (1866/1944), Arturo Martini (1889/1947), Amedeo Modigliani (1884/1920), Giacomo Balla (1871/1958), Emilio Greco (1913/95), Franco Gentilini (1909/81), Carlo Levi (1902/75), Anselmo Bucci (1887/1955), Achille Funi (1890/1972), Giovanni Prini (1877/1958), Umberto Mastroianni (1910/98), Ivan Meštrović (1883/1962), Giuseppe Capogrossi (1900/72), Otto Dix (1891/1969) and Oskar Kokoschka (1886/1980)

VATICAN MUSEUMS - BORGIA'S APARTMENT (second part)

Room V – Of the Saints

Masterpiece by Pinturicchio: friezes in stucco and gilded with representations of the “Myth of Osiris, and Io and the bull Apis” an allusion to the bull, a symbol of the Borgia family

From the lunette above the entrance towards left:

“Visitation”, “St. Paul the Hermit and St. Anthony Abbot in the Thebaid”, “Disputation of St. Catherine of Alexandria with the philosophers before the Emperor Maximilian” (with self-portrait by Pinturicchio on the far left), “Legend of St. Barbara”, “Legend of the chaste Susanna”, “Martyrdom of St. Sebastian” with, in the background, Colosseum, Palatine Hill and the church of Ss. Giovanni e Paolo

Above the door round panel with “Madonna and Child with cherubim”

 

Room VI – Of the Mysteries of the Faith

Painted by Pinturicchio with pupils maybe Tiberio d'Assisi (about 1460-70/1524) and Bartolomeo di Giovanni

In the vault stuccos and paintings, “David”, “Solomon”, “Isaiah”, “Jeremiah”, “Malachi”, “Zephaniah”, “Micah” and “Joel”

In the lunettes from right Seven Mysteries of the Faith, the mysteries of Christ's life as opposed to the joyful mysteries of the life of Mary:

“Resurrection” with on the lower left portrait of Alexander VI kneeling, one of the finest Renaissance portraits, a true masterpiece of the highest quality

“Epiphany”, “Nativity”, “Annunciation”, “Ascension”, “Pentecost” and “Assumption”

Portraits of the twentieth century sculpted by artists such as Francesco Messina (1900/95), Alberto Giacometti (1901/66), Giovanni Prini (1877/1958) and Emilio Greco (1913/95)

 

Room VII – Of the Popes

It was the largest room, where the official papal ceremonies were held

The ceiling collapsed disastrously in 1500 during a ceremony with the pope present. Alexander VI was miraculously safe but many people died

It was rebuilt in 1521 with stucco and frescoes by Giovanni Ricamatore aka Giovanni da Udine (1487/1564) and Pietro Bonaccorsi aka Perin del Vaga (1501/47) who painted the “Center of the ceiling with four angels in foreshortening” for Leo X Medici (1513/21)

“They go beyond the effects of light inaugurated by Raphael, while the accent on the elegant graphic elements must be ascribed to his Florentine education” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“The assistant of Perin del Vaga was Giovanni da Udine, but the invention of the whole set comes exclusively from him. The task was of great importance, but it was only designed in a decorative way, not with that purity of taste that would have been worthy of Raphael. The subject - the seven planets - looks like just an excuse to create a system of panels with grotesques and small ovals with scenes containing figures, all well balanced although rich in variations. At the center is a circle with four Victories, whose garments take on a rhythmic and wonderful grace; the distribution of the whole receives from this central point its accent and its valuable support” (Hermann Voss)

The OTHER ROOMS from Room VIII to Room LV do not have significant decorations, and house, like the first seven, the marvelous Collection of Religious Modern Art

VATICAN MUSEUMS - BORGIA'S APARTMENT (first part)

APPARTAMENTO BORGIA

 

1492/95 Bernardino di Betto aka Pinturicchio (1454/1513) and assistants including Antonio del Massaro aka Antonio da Viterbo or Pastura (about 1450/1516), Tiberio d'Assisi (about 1460-70/1524), Benedetto Bonfigli, Bartolomeo di Giovanni and Pietro d'Andrea da Volterra for Alexander VI Borgia (1492/1503) who lived here

It was later also used by Julius II, but only until 1507 when, tired of living in the same apartment that belonged to his bitter enemy, he moved upstairs

“Pinturicchio like Perugino exploits his paintings but rather for the hedonistic taste for colorful images than for the principles of faith and instruction of the faithful. Just because the pleasure of the eyes also please the intellect, he creates with the same liveliness figures in stories of saints, mythological tales and contemporary events. It is without doubt the most secular of the painters of his time” (Giulio Carlo Argan)

“The iconographic program of the frescoes, of great doctrinal complexity, blended biblical exegesis of the early centuries with the latest hagiographic sources and hermetic currents of contemporary thought. At a formal level, a legacy of the late Gothic updated to the modern culture of perspective, overlapped to an adorned style of Spanish-Moorish origin, linked to the Valencian origins of the client” (Explanatory panel in the Room of Mysteries of Faith)

The first three rooms are included in the TORRE BORGIA (Borgia Tower) dating to the years 1492/94 and corresponding to the Sala dell'Immacolata (Room of the Immaculate Conception) upstairs

 

Room I – Of the Sibyls

 

In 1500 two assassins of Cesare Borgia killed here Alfonso I of Aragon, the second husband of Lucrezia Borgia, in his bed

Twelve lunettes with “Sibyls and Prophets” and above “Eight little stories with astronomical symbols” (with seven planets, and a discussion among astronomers and armillary sphere) by pupils of Pinturicchio including probably Antonio da Viterbo

 

Room II

 

No frescoes in this room

 

Room III – Of the Creed

 

In the twelve lunettes “Prophets and Apostles” with scrolls reproducing the verses of the Creed, maybe painted by Piermatteo Lauro di Manfredo aka Piermatteo d'Amelia (1446-48/about 1506)

 

Room IV – Of the Liberal Arts

 

Maybe it was the study of Alexander VI and the place where his dead body was exposed

“Fireplace” of the sixteenth century maybe by Simone Mosca and designed by Jacopo Tatti aka Jacopo Sansovino (1486/1570)

Remains of the original tiles in the floor

In the two vaults heraldic emblems of the Borgia family “Bull and radiant crown”

In the lunettes “Arts of the trivium” (grammar, dialectic and rhetoric) and “Arts of the Quadrivium” (geometry, arithmetic, music and geometry) with celebrities in the cultural world of the fifteenth century symbolizing the different disciplines, maybe painted by Tiberio d'Assisi (about 1460-70/1524) and Lorenzo da Viterbo (about 1444/72)

In the arch that separates the room in two frescoes with the theme of “Justice”

From the Room of Liberal Arts gateway to some small rooms including Alexander VI's bedroom and the treasury