Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, Vatican Museums

Last updated
Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, Vatican Museums
Lightmatter vaticanmuseum.jpg
Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, Vatican Museums
Established1973
Location Vatican City
CuratorMario Ferrazza
Website https://museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani-mobile/en/collezioni/musei/collezione-d_arte-contemporanea/collezione-d-arte-contemporanea.html

The Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art is a collection of paintings, graphic art and sculptures in the Vatican Museums.

Contents

It occupies 55 rooms: the Borgia Apartment (apartment of Pope Alexander VI) on the first floor of the Apostolic Palace, the two floors of the Salette Borgia, a series of rooms below the Sistine Chapel, and a series of rooms on the ground floor. Approximately 250 artists created over 500 pieces that are displayed in the Borgia Apartments. The Collection was officially introduced to the public on June 23, 1973. [1]

A permanent contemporary art gallery was installed on the premises in November 2021. [2]

Collection

Vincent van Gogh
Pieta, after Delacroix (first version), 1889
Oil on canvas, 41,5 x 34 cm, Vatican Collection of Modern Religious Art Vincent van Gogh - Pieta (after Delacroix).jpg
Vincent van Gogh
Pietà, after Delacroix (first version), 1889
Oil on canvas, 41,5 x 34 cm, Vatican Collection of Modern Religious Art

The collection consists of almost 800 works by 250 international artists including: Francis Bacon, Giacomo Balla, Ernst Barlach, Max Beckmann, Émile Bernard, Bernard Buffet, Alice Lok Cahana, Marc Chagall, Eduardo Chillida, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Maurice Denis, Otto Dix, Paul Gauguin, Renato Guttuso, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Alfred Manessier, Giacomo Manzù, Giorgio Morandi, Pablo Picasso, Odilon Redon, Auguste Rodin, Georges Rouault, Maurice Utrillo, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri Matisse. The majority of these works of art were donated by artists and collectors to the Holy See. [3] The collection combines works that are "surrealist, cubist, post-impressionist, and expressionist." [4]

In 2011, Matisse's son, Pierre, donated to the Vatican Museum. As a result, Matisse has his own room in the Vatican, containing a set of Catholic liturgical vestments called chasubles from Vence. [5] Other notable works include Vincent Van Gogh's Pietà and Paul Gauguin's wooden relief. In the same room, post-Impressionist sculptor Merdardo Rosso created a wax work known as Aetas Aurea. [6] Francis Bacon created a piece detailing Pope Innocent X. Auguste Rodin's aquatints and a Hand of God cast are also displayed in the Vatican. [5]

Another room in the Vatican is dedicated to Marino Marini, a modernist Italian sculptor. Many of the donations in the Vatican came from private collectors and families, and Marini's wife, Marina, donated many of his pieces to the Vatican. His distinctly religious works are a bronze crucifix called Crocifisso, a relief sculpture titled Crocifissione, and a bust of a juggler, Giocoliere. [7] The art of Gentili Guttuso, another Italian painter, occupies the eighth room of the Vatican Collection. His work is much more figurative than Marini's, focusing on religious subject matter but represented through an avant-garde style of abstraction. [8] His work, similar to other artists featured, is somewhat surrealist.

The prehistory of the Collection of Modern Religious Art begun with the homily of Pope Paul VI during his encounter with artists in the Sistine Chapel on May 7, 1964. [9] The Pope expressed an ambition to link the Church to contemporary art in order to bridge the past and present. [1]

Pope Paul VI inaugurated the Collection of Modern Religious Art in 1973. [3] Mario Ferrazza has been responsible for the collection since 1973. On April 23, 1999, Pope John Paul II introduced a new area to the Collection, which continues to expand in space and scope. [10]

In 2018, the museum commissioned a group of established photographers to document and interpret the interior and architectural spaces of the museums. Works by Bill Armstrong, Peter Bialobrzeski, Antonio Biasiucci, Alain Fleischer, Francesco Jodice, Mimmo Jodice, Rinko Kawauchi, Martin Parr and Massimo Siragusa were exhibited in a subsequent exhibition called "A matter of light. Nine photographers in the Vatican Museums", the show was produced to be a symbolic beginning of a new photographic collection at the museum; with pictures that are directly related to the museum itself. [11]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Collection of Contemporary Art". Musei Vaticani. Archived from the original on 2017-07-14. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  2. Magazine, Smithsonian; Gershon, Livia. "The Vatican, Home to Centuries-Old Masterpieces, Opens a Contemporary Art Gallery". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 2022-06-10.
  3. 1 2 Speech of Pope Paul VI on the occasion of the Inauguration of the Collection of Modern Religious Art in the Vatican Museums on June 23, 1973
  4. Babka, Susie Paulik (2021), Chapman, Mark D.; Latinovic, Vladimir (eds.), "Making the Spiritual World Accessible: Paul VI and Modern Art at the Close of Vatican II", Changing the Church: Transformations of Christian Belief, Practice, and Life, Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 93–100, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-53425-7_11, ISBN   978-3-030-53425-7, S2CID   228874834 , retrieved 2021-06-01
  5. 1 2 Hughes, Robert (1975-01-01). "Labyrinth of Kitsch". Theology Today. 31 (4): 339–342. doi:10.1177/004057367503100411. ISSN   0040-5736. S2CID   170861519.
  6. "Van Gogh, Gauguin, Medardo". Musei Vaticani. Archived from the original on 2017-03-09. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  7. "Marino Marini". Musei Vaticani. Archived from the original on 2017-05-12. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  8. "Gentilini, Guttuso". Musei Vaticani. Archived from the original on 2017-03-10. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  9. Homily of Pope Paul VI at the “Mass of the Artists” in the Sistine Chapel on May 7, 1964
  10. Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane (July 2006). "Vatican museums: collection of modern religious art". Material Religion. 2 (2): 251–253. doi:10.2752/174322006778053672. ISSN   1743-2200. S2CID   191440264.
  11. Forti, Micol; Mauro, Alessandra (2019). A Matter of Light: Nine Photographers in the Vatican Museum. Contrasto. ISBN   978-8869657528.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent van Gogh</span> Dutch painter (1853–1890)

Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. Not commercially successful in his career, he struggled with severe depression and poverty, which eventually led to his suicide at age thirty-seven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sistine Chapel</span> Chapel in the Apostolic Palace, Vatican City

The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the pope's official residence in Vatican City. Originally known as the Cappella Magna, the chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built between 1473 and 1481. Since that time, the chapel has served as a place of both religious and functionary papal activity. Today, it is the site of the papal conclave, the process by which a new pope is selected. The fame of the Sistine Chapel lies mainly in the frescoes that decorate the interior, most particularly the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgment, both by Michelangelo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Post-Impressionism</span> Predominantly French art movement, 1886–1905

Post-Impressionism was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction against Impressionists' concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and colour. Its broad emphasis on abstract qualities or symbolic content means Post-Impressionism encompasses Les Nabis, Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism, Cloisonnism, the Pont-Aven School, and Synthetism, along with some later Impressionists' work. The movement's principal artists were Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vatican Museums</span> Museums of the Vatican City

The Vatican Museums are the public museums of the Vatican City. They display works from the immense collection amassed by the Catholic Church and the papacy throughout the centuries, including several of the most well-known Roman sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. The museums contain roughly 70,000 works, of which 20,000 are on display, and currently employ 640 people who work in 40 different administrative, scholarly, and restoration departments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Apostolic Palace</span> Official residence of the Pope located in Vatican City

The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the pope, the head of the Catholic Church, located in Vatican City. It is also known as the Papal Palace, the Palace of the Vatican and the Vatican Palace. The Vatican itself refers to the building as the Palace of Sixtus V, in honor of Pope Sixtus V, who built most of the present form of the palace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portland Art Museum</span> Museum in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

The Portland Art Museum (PAM) is an art museum in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. The Portland Art Museum has 240,000 square feet, with more than 112,000 square feet of gallery space. The museum’s permanent collection has over 42,000 works of art. PAM features a center for Native American art, a center for Northwest art, a center for modern and contemporary art, permanent exhibitions of Asian art, and an outdoor public sculpture garden. The Northwest Film Center is also a component of Portland Art Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neue Pinakothek</span> Art museum in Munich, Germany

The Neue Pinakothek is an art museum in Munich, Germany. Its focus is European Art of the 18th and 19th centuries, and it is one of the most important museums of art of the nineteenth century in the world.

The Kunstareal is a museum quarter in the city centre of Munich, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Borgia Apartments</span>

The Borgia Apartments are a suite of rooms in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican, adapted for personal use by Pope Alexander VI. In the late 15th century, he commissioned the Italian painter Bernardino di Betto (Pinturicchio) and his studio to decorate them with frescoes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copies by Vincent van Gogh</span> Series of paintings by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh made many copies of other people's work between 1887 and early 1890, which can be considered appropriation art. While at Saint-Paul asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, where Van Gogh admitted himself, he strived to have subjects during the cold winter months. Seeking to be reinvigorated artistically, Van Gogh did more than 30 copies of works by some of his favorite artists. About twenty-one of the works were copies after, or inspired by, Jean-François Millet. Rather than replicate, Van Gogh sought to translate the subjects and composition through his perspective, color, and technique. Spiritual meaning and emotional comfort were expressed through symbolism and color. His brother Theo van Gogh would call the pieces in the series some of his best work.

This is an index of Vatican City–related topics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fauvism</span> Artistic style

Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of les Fauves, a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1904 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1905–1908, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Henri Matisse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vatican Historical Museum</span>

The Vatican Historical Museum is one of the sections of the Vatican Museums. It was founded in 1973 at the behest of Pope Paul VI, and was initially hosted in environments under the Square Garden. In 1987 it was moved to the main floor of the Apostolic Palace of the Lateran and opened in March 1991.

The Paul Gauguin Interpretation Centre is located at Le Carbet in Martinique and is dedicated to famous French painter Paul Gauguin's stay on the island in 1887.

<i>Vahine no te vi</i> Painting by Paul Gauguin

Vahine no te vi is an 1892 painting by Paul Gauguin, currently in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. It is one of the earliest of about seventy paintings he produced during his first visit to Tahiti and is one of many works of modern art in the museum's Cone Collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Jatta</span> Italian art historian (born 1962)

Barbara Jatta is an Italian art historian who has been the director of the Vatican Museums since June 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antonio Paolucci</span> Italian art historian and curator (born 1939)

Antonio Paolucci is an Italian art historian and curator. In 2007 he was appointed director of the Vatican Museums by Pope Benedict XVI, a post he held until 2017 when he was replaced by his former deputy, Barbara Jatta. Throughout his career Paolucci has worked also in Florence, Venice, Verona, Mantua and other Italian cities in national art and cultural institutions. He has written many books and articles on art history and made television appearances on a variety of programs to explain and promote art. He is the recipient of numerous awards for his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art</span> Art museum in Athens, Greece

The Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art is a modern art museum in Eratosthenous Street, Pangrati, Athens, Greece, opened in October 2019. It displays many of the works amassed by shipowner Basil Goulandris and his wife Elise Karadontis, who died in 1994, with an art collection valued at US$3 billion.

Vatican City has become one of the world's most striking architecture through several centuries and a world cultural heritage. The area of the Vatican is small, which is made up of several famous landmarks. The architecture of Vatican City, dominated by religious architecture, is characterized by several architectural styles such as Roman, Baroque, and Gothic with the different time, most representative the buildings are concentrated in the medieval period and the 16th–18th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anima Mundi, Vatican City</span> Art and sculpture museums in Vatican City

Anima Mundi is a museum of ethnological art and artefacts in the Vatican City. It is part of the Vatican Museums.

References

41°54′12″N12°27′18″E / 41.9033°N 12.4550°E / 41.9033; 12.4550