Caravaggio-Bernini, Holland celebrates Italian geniuses

(by Marzia Apice) (ANSA) - AMSTERDAM, FEBRUARY 15 - Those who think that emotion, dynamism and dramatic tension are the dominant elements in a work of art cannot miss a visit to the great exhibition with which the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum makes tribute to the greatest Italian artistic personalities: "Caravaggio- Bernini. Barok in Rome", the first project abroad dedicated to the birth of Italian Baroque. Made in close collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the exhibition was designed by the Amsterdam Formafantasma agency, made up of the Italians Simone Farresin and AndreaTrimarchi, and will remain on display until 7 June.
From the sublime play of light by Caravaggio, with masterpieces such as Narcissus, the Boy bitten by a green lizard and the Coronation dispine, to the power of Bernini's marble, with the juvenile Bacchus, the moving San Sebastiano, the bust of Medusa, but also rare marble portraits by Thomas Baker, by Cardinal Michelieu and a self-portrait: there is no shortage of extraordinary works for technical virtuosity and emotional intensity, which continue to strike the eyes and hearts of those who look at them by virtue of a language still revolutionary today. Moreover, thanks to the agenity of Caravaggio and Bernini, Rome became in the first decades of the seventeenth century the cradle of a new, surprising language, which managed to merge painting, sculpture and architecture into a single whole and which then influenced the art of all Europe.
And it is precisely on the artistic ferment of those Roman years that the exhibition focuses, presenting to the public a corpus of over 70 baroque works from international museums and private collections - not only the masters Caravaggio and Bernini, but also paintings by Ludovico and Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni, Giovanni Baglione, dei Gentileschi, by Nicolas Poussin, SimonVouet and the eccentric Tanzio da Varallo and sculptures by Alessandro Algardi, including Sonno (Slaap) in black marble, dancing lastatua of the Rondinini Faun of the Flemish François du Quesnoy, the greatest exponent of the Roman Baroque, and an equestrian bronze statue of Francesco Mochi: in all these works there are traces of the main terms of the artistic vocabulary of the time, concepts such as "wonder", "vivacity", "motion", "joke" or "terrible", perfectly expressed on the canvas or on matter sculpted in an art that points to a visionary of life, enhancing the dramatic dimension and technical perfection.
A clear and elegant design idea animates the Formafantasma project, in the belief that nothing should disturb the pre-domination of the emotion and drama that permeates each exhibited work: that's why Farresin and Trimarchi have chosen a style that focuses on sobriety, also opting for the Kvadrat fabrics in warm shades capable of combining with the atmospheres of the 17th century. (HANDLE).