Caravaggio. The Human and the Divine
09 October 2020[Translate to English:] Caravaggio 1
This autumn, Dresden will be hosting an iconic masterpiece of Italian art: from the Capitoline Museums in Rome, the painting “John the Baptist” by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571–1610). The Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD), will be presenting the picture with more than 50 works selected from its own collection, revealing Caravaggio’s far-reaching influence on art across the generations and nations.
- Exhibition Site Zwinger
- DATES 16/10/2020—17/01/2021
[Translate to English:] Caravaggio 2
The exhibition “Caravaggio. The Human and the Divine” will be held from 16 October 2020 to 17 January 2021 in the Winckelmann-Forum at the Semperbau am Zwinger.
The exhibition examines how Caravaggio’s art and artistic practices were a constant topic of artistic debate and sparked creativity among his successors. Works will also be shown which either directly inspired the Lombard artist to create his own pictorial compositions or which offer an insight into the cultural context in which he created his paintings.
The painting “John the Baptist” has been the subject of discussion ever since it was created for the Roman Marchese Ciriaco Mattei in 1602. Painted for a private collection, the provocative depiction of the saint as a naked boy embracing a ram inspires speculation on the picture’s message and the painter’s intentions. The painting itself, meanwhile, unites all the artistic qualities which Caravaggio still stands for today: his chiaroscuro, his radical naturalism and his skill at creating whole new narratives which came to serve as archetypes.
Works by Parmigianino, Paolo Veronese and Annibale Carracci shed light on the extensive inventory of forms, stylistic devices and pictorial concepts which were used in the paintings of the Cinquecento and came to final fruition in Caravaggio’s works. Direct comparison with exhibits from the Skulpturensammlung up to 1800 (Sculpture Collection) reveals how the art of classical antiquity influenced 16th- and 17th-century motifs and depictions of the human body. The Dresden collections also include a group of paintings by important artists which reflect not just Caravaggio’s legacy in Italy but also how his style spread through Northern Europe and Spain. Works by Leonello Spada, Peter Paul Rubens and Francisco de Zurbarán offer insights into the effect it exerted on contemporary audiences. Others by Luca Giordano, Johannes Vermeer and Adriaen van der Werff prove that Caravaggio remained a role model for centuries among artists all over Europe. This timeless position in art history makes Caravaggio one of the most influential artists to this day.
To accompany the special exhibition, the catalogue “Caravaggio. The Human and the Divine” is being published in German and English by Sandstein Verlag for Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden: Stephan Koja, Iris Yvonne Wagner, 192 pages, €35, museum edition €28, ISBN 978-3-95498-569-2.
