The Vatican Museums are proud
to present a completely new project for the Contemporary
Art Museum: the conversion of the thirty-second room,
found immediately before the stairs leading to the
Sistine Chapel, into the new Matisse Room. Among its
collection, the Vatican Museums has the unique ensemble
of works by Henri Matisse made for the Chappelle du
Rosaire in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. These works were donated
by the son of the artist, Pierre Matisse, to the Vatican
Museums in 1980. The Chappelle du Rosaire is the last
and most important work of sacred art made by Matisse
between 1950 and 1954 in which he designed the whole
chapel: its architecture, paintings, stained glass
windows, vestments, crucifix and altar.
Presently, the Vatican Museums has in storage: four
preparatory cartoons for the choir area, the apse
and nave; five silk chasubles designed by Matisse
himself for the liturgies of the chapel; two bronze
“bozzetti” for the Crucifix and the Cross;
and, twelve lithographs for the study of the face
of the Virgin. The Vatican Museums also has in its
possession various letters sent from Matisse to the
Mother Superior of the Dominican Order, Soeur Jacques-Marie,
including some sketches of the works that Matisse
intended to carry out. Since 1973 and 1980 all of
these artworks and letters have been held in storage.
Once completed, the room will display all of these
elements of the chapel in order to give the visitor
a vision of this most unique chapel. The primary phase
of this project took place in 2002 with the restoration
of the Matisse Virgin and Child, thanks to generosity
of the California Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican
Museums. |
Born in Ferrara in 1852, Gaetano Previati is one of
the most important Italian artists of the nineteenth
century. He is also well known for bringing new materials
and style into sacred contemporary art.
During his career, he first joined the artistic movement
of the Scapigialtura in Milan, but later he became known
for his skills in the artistic movement known as divisionism.
He studied in Florence and Milan and he also attended
the Academy of Brera.
The Vatican Museums’ Contemporary Art Collection
has one of the most important masterpieces of this artist:
the Via Crucis. Previati painted three versions of the
Via Crucis or the Way of the Cross and this is the last
and most famous one (1901). It consists of 14 canvases,
characterized by a multicolored use of contrasting figures
in their dispositions and this, along with the nontraditional
use of diagonal brushwork or strokes of paint, brings
a contemporary and modern feel to the observer of a
very traditional religious work of popular piety. |
XIX
CENTURY AND CONTEMPORARY ART
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