“Divine Beauty: From Van Gogh to Chagall and Fontana” at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from September 24, 2015 to January 24, 2016 explores the relationship between art and religion from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century through more than one hundred works by some of the best known Italian and international artists.
The artists featured in the exhibition include renowned Italian artists such as Domenico Morelli, Gaetano Previati, Felice Casorati, Renato Guttuso, Lucio Fontana, and Emilio Vedova, as well as international masters such as Vincent van Gogh, Jean-François Millet, Edvard Munch, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Georges Rouault, and Henri Matisse.
Curated by Lucia Mannini, Anna Mazzanti, Ludovica Sebregondi and Carlo Sisi, “Divine Beauty” presents religious art as a genre in its own right. Over seven main sections – From Salon to Altar, Rose Mystica, Life of Christ, Gino Severini: Mural Decoration from Spirituality to Poetry, Architecture, The Church, and Prayer – the exhibition analyses and contextualizes almost a century of modern religious art.
“Divine Beauty” highlights the dialogue, ties, and even the clashes in the relationship between art and religious sentiment that began during a period of transition in the late 19th century from historicist styles of representation to an artistic vocabulary suited to modern times that is characterized by what is described as “a grace that injects aesthetic substance into the form of works of art.”
Key works in the exhibition include Jean-François Millet’s “Angelus,” on loan from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris; Vincent van Gogh’s “Pietà” from the Vatican Museums; Renato Guttuso’s “Crucifixion” from the collections of the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome; and Marc Chagall’s “White Crucifixion” from the Art Institute Museum in Chicago, one of Pope Francis’s favourite works of art.
Video by Palazzo Strozzi. Courtesy Palazzo Strozzi
