Paintings by Caravaggio, sculptures by Bernini on show at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Lot-Art visited the exhibition Caravaggio-Bernini, Baroque in Rome at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. On show more than 70 masterpieces by Caravaggio, Bernini and their contemporaries. The paintings and sculptures are on loan to the Rijksmuseum from museums and private collections around the world. The exhibition can be visited from 14 February to 7 June 2020.

Left: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Medusa, Rome, 1638–40 (see full-size image »); Right: Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Thomas Baker (1606–1657/58), Rome, 1637/38 Carrara marble, h. 81.6 cm (incl. pedestal) London, Victoria and Albert Museum Inv. no. A.3-1921 (see full-size image »)

In the first decades of the 17th century, a new generation of ambitious artists led by the brilliant painter Caravaggio and sculptor Bernini shook the eternal city of Rome from its slumber. They introduced a new language to art that dispensed with elegance and incited the emotions. This was Baroque, a spectacular artistic style charged with drama and dynamism which sparked an intimate link between painting, sculpture and architecture. This was a revolution in Western art, one that started in Rome and resonated throughout Europe.

Left: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, The Crowning with Thorns, Rome, c. 1603 (see full-size image »); Right: Artemisia Gentileschi, Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy, Rome or Venice, c. 1620/25 or c. 1630/35 Canvas, 81 × 105 cm Private European collection Photo: Saint Louis Art Museum (see full-size image »)

Highlights

The exhibition highlights are Caravaggio’s mesmerising Narcissus, his Boy Bitten by a Lizard and The Crowning with Thorns, and Bernini sculptures such as the rarely exhibited early work Bacchus, his poignant Saint Sebastian, the bust of Medusa, as well as striking marble portraits of Thomas Baker and Cardinal Richelieu, and a painting titled Self-Portrait. Other paintings in the exhibition are by Ludovico and Annibale Carraci, Guido Reni, Giovanni Baglione, the Gentileschis, Nicolas Poussin, Simon Vouet, and the eccentric artist Tanzio da Varallo.

Left: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Narcissus, Rome, c. 1600 (see full-size image »); Right: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Boy Bitten by a Lizard c. 1597/98 (see full-size image »)

Barok in Rome

This joyous Italian counterpart to the reserved and austere Protestant Dutch culture of the 17th was overlooked in the Netherlands. Elsewhere, however, it sparked an artistic revolution, and its impact was felt throughout Catholic Europe. The leading lights of Baroque in Rome were Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) and the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), two geniuses around whom many other talented artists flocked. The arts in Rome were booming in the first decades of the 17th century, and in the space of just a few years the eternal city was transformed into an international melting pot bursting with new artistic ideas and initiatives.


Left: Orazio Borgianni, David Decapitating Goliath, c. 1605 - 1610 (see full-size image »); Right: Orazio Gentileschi, Judith and her maidservant with the head of Holofernes, c.1608 - 1609 (see full-size image »)

This vibrant climate formed the ideal conditions for the birth of a new style, one that would be only be named ‘Baroque’ much later – from the Portuguese barocco, for the irregular form of a natural pearl. More than ever before, painters teamed up with sculptors, and the central figures in this exhibition – Caravaggio, Bernini and their kindred spirits – embody this artistic fraternalism. Together, their works tell a story of immense artistic vigour in Rome and radical renewal in the arts in the approximate period from 1600 to 1640. The exhibition will be guided by key terms in the artistic vocabulary of the time, such as wonderment (meraviglia), vivacity (vivezza), motion (moto), jest (scherzo) and horror (terribilità).

Left: Carlo Saraceni, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, c. 1610 (see full-size image »); Right: Trophime Bigot, Man Screaming, c. 1615 - 1620 (see full-size image »)

Caravaggio and Bernini

Baroque began in Rome in the moment around 1600 when Caravaggio was creating a sensation with powerful chiaroscuro paintings permeating with an innovative and intense naturalism. His radical art started a movement with many followers – they would later come to be known as Caravaggisti – including Italian artists such as father and daughter Gentileschi, Borgianni, Bartolomeo Manfredi, Guercino, Baglione and Mattia Preti, as well as the Dutch artist Ter Brugghen and Honthorst van Van Baburen, for example. Just a few years after Caravaggio’s death in 1610, the multitalented sculptor Bernini came to the fore with a series of impressive and technically virtuoso sculptures that evoke drama, natural vitality and motion. In the decades that followed, Bernini’s sculptural work gave new impetus to Caravaggio’s legacy, one that radically altered the face of Rome. The sculptor’s innovations are felt to this day in any number of artistic terrains, including lifelike portraits, grand mausoleums, sculpted fountains and church architecture.

Left: Carlo Saraceni. The Martyrdom of St. Cecilia, 1610 (see full-size image »); Right: Orazio Gentileschi, The Sacrifice of Isaac, c 1612 (see full-size image »)

The exhibition is designed by Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi at Studio Formafantasma in Amsterdam. This Italian designer duo has chosen an elegant, understated style that leaves ample space for the Baroque language of the artworks to fully manifest itself. The subtle use of colour and material – including the integration of Kvadrat fabrics and warm hues – creates a contemporary environment for the powerful 17th-century art.

Left: Antonio d'Enrico called Tanzio da Varallo, St Sebastian Tended by the Widow Irene and an Angel, c. 1615 - 1625 (see full-size image »); Right: Annibale Carracci and workshop, Venus, Adonis, c. 1600 - 1625 (see full-size image »)

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