Exhibition
The exhibition presents around forty works by the protagonists of one of the most fertile seasons of Italian contemporary art, such as Felice Casorati, Carlo Carrà, Marino Marini, Ottone Rosai, Renato Guttuso, Fausto Pirandello, Pericle Fazzini, Giacomo Manzù, coming from the Contemporary Art Collection of the Vatican Museums, alongside less celebrated names, such as Aldo Carpi, Giuseppe Montanari, Antonio Giuseppe Santagata, Felice Carena, Gerardo Dottori but equally capable of interpreting the Passion of Christ, as a sign of the suffering that touched the whole of humanity and, at the same time, of considering his Resurrection as hope and rebirth to a new life.
The result is a choral narrative, which testifies to how Italian art, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the seventies of the last century, has maintained a constant interest in the sacred and in the challenge of renewing and reactivating its meaning in the present. In particular, the themes linked to the Passion of Christ constituted a fundamental ground for exchange and study between iconographic, stylistic and narrative aspects.
The exhibition itinerary begins with a focus on some episodes that precede the Passion of Christ, such as the Kiss of Judas in the interpretation of Giuseppe Montanari and Felice Casorati or the Flagellation by Salvatore Fiume.
The central rooms are dedicated to the representation of the Crucifixion, expressed in the many technical and interpretative variants, from Gerardo Dottori’s 1927 canvas, among the first works of Futurist sacred art, to the bronze Crucifix by Giacomo Manzù of 1937, from the plaster bas-relief by Marino Marini of 1939, to the drawings by Renato Guttuso, preparatory for the great Crucifixion of 1941, to the Via Crucis by Pericle Fazzini of 1957-1958 for the church of Santa Barbara in San Donato Milanese.
The exhibition continues by addressing the theme of the Pietà and the Deposition, through the works of Carlo Carrà, Felice Carena, Francesco Messina, Marino Marini and closes with a drawing and a bronze sketch by Pericle Fazzini preparatory to the monumental Resurrection of the Paul VI Hall, intended for the pontifical audiences and inaugurated by Pope Montini himself in 1977.
A section is reserved for the figure of Paul VI and his thoughts on art, particularly contemporary art, and architecture. Here we find a selection of preparatory sketches for the Via Crucis created between 1960 and 1961 by Guido Strazza for the church of Ponte Lambro, in the south-eastern outskirts of Milan. Designed by the architect Guido Maffezzoli, this is one of the places of worship that is part of the plan to build 22 churches for 22 councils, conceived and promoted in 1961 by the then Archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Battista Montini, to respond to the growth of the Lombard capital and to celebrate the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
Curated by Micol Forti, head of the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Nadia Righi, director of the Museo Diocesano, the exhibition has the patronage of the Lombardy Region, the Municipality of Milan and the Archdiocese of Milan, with Deloitte as main sponsor and IGP Decaux as media partner. It marks a new chapter in the collaboration between the Museo Diocesano in Milan and the Vatican Museums, begun in 2018 with Gaetano Previati. The Passion and continued in 2020 with Gauguin, Matisse, Chagall. The Passion in French Art from the Vatican Museums. The latter inaugurated the first of three exhibitions planned for the Easter period under the title Resurrections of the Gaze.
