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Conceived and designed jointly by the Musée du Louvre and Castello Sforzesco, the exhibition was hosted in Paris until June 21st

Milan, July 20 2021 – Hosted in the rooms of the Musée du Louvre in Paris until 21 June, the exhibition “The Body and the Soul, from Donatello to Michelangelo” opens to the public tomorrow, Tuesday 21 July, until 24 October in the Visconti Rooms of the Castello Sforzesco. Italian Sculpture of the Renaissance", promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan-Culture, Castello Sforzesco, Musée du Louvre and created thanks to Civita Mostre Musei, with the support of Fondazione Cariplo.

A look at over sixty years of art history, from Donatello's return to Florence in 1453 until the death of the most perfect interpreters of the Renaissance, Leonardo and Raphael, who died respectively in 1519 and 1520. Sixty years during which the Renaissance masters excavated the material to bring out "the movements of the soul", the torments and tensions, the heartbeats, to make the emotion even more alive. Sixty years of works torn from marble, modeled in terracotta, carved in wood, cast in bronze, in a journey that finds its peak in the "Pietà Rondanini", on which Michelangelo worked until his death in 1564.

The route was studied and designed jointly by the Musée du Louvre and Castello Sforzesco, in particular by Marc Bormand, curator of the sculpture department of the Louvre; Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi, director of the Bargello Museum from 2001 to 2014; Francesca Tasso, curator responsible for the Artistic Collections of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.

The 120 works on display come from the most important museums in the world: from the Metropolitan Museum in New York to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid to the National Bargello Museum in Florence, from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London to “Her Majesy the Queen Elisabeth II from the British Royal Collection”, as well as, of course, from the Musée du Louvre and the civic collections of the Castello Sforzesco.

“The great critical success already achieved by the exhibition in Paris ensures that Milanese people and visitors to our city will have the opportunity to admire an extraordinary exhibition throughout the summer season, with extended opening hours – states the Councilor for Culture Filippo Del Corno –. The Sforzesco Castle, which was Leonardo's 'home' for the twenty years of his fullest maturity, is configured as the natural venue to represent and propose a historical-critical insight into such a crucial period for the history of art like that represented by the Italian Renaissance".

The heart of the exhibition is placed in the second half of the fifteenth century, when the masters of the Renaissance such as Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Pollaiolo, Michelangelo, Verrocchio, Bambaia and many others, worked between Milan, Venice, Rome, Florence, but also Ferrara, Padua, Bologna, thus broadening the geography of the Italian Renaissance, and therefore of the exhibition itinerary, towards the north. A vast region but at that time politically fragmented by many borders and different kingdoms, within which the Renaissance sprouted with particular characteristics: Florentine innovations and local traditions - without forgetting the influence of Flemish and Burgundian courtly art - they are in fact mixed in each of these creative hotbeds, to give rise to an extraordinary variety of artistic languages.

The Renaissance brought many innovations to Italian art: in addition to the great impulse to the study of anatomy, perspective and optics, that of the soul was also the subject of in-depth research: from the birth of physiognomy to the passion for the grotesque, which characterized the experience of some artists such as Leonardo, we understand how a new interest in representation was born in that period: the human figure now no longer had to be disconnected from emotions - fury or grace, torment or ecstasy - but profoundly linked to the soul, to desire, to the less visible component of the "man" subject.

In the innovative interpretation given by the sculptors of this time, the movements of the soul are made visible through the attitude of the bodies, and the artists investigate their psyche by representing them at rest, in movement, while fighting or dreaming, highlighting the emotions, both in the sacred and profane spheres, in a way that is both ferociously expressive and, on the contrary, sublimely sweet.

Divided into four sections (1. Looking at the ancients: fury and grace; 2. Sacred art: moving and convincing; 3. From Dionysius to Apollo; 4. Rome “Caput mundi”), the exhibition develops in the Visconti Rooms almost the same itinerary hosted at the Louvre, apart from the last room which saw the Slaves (or Prisoners) exhibited in Paris and the Rondanini Pietà in Milan: both works by Michelangelo, both immovable.

The sections:

1. Fury and grace constitute the first major theme covered in the journey. The interest in complex compositions and in the exasperation of body movements becomes prevalent in numerous sculptors and will be documented through works by Antonio del Pollaiolo, Francesco di Giorgio Martini or Bertoldo, up to Verrocchio, Leonardo and Gianfrancesco Rustici, placing At stake is both the complexity of muscular strength and the twists of the male body, and the expressive effect of the most intense passions of the soul. On the contrary, elegant drapes allow the artists to reveal the charm of the human figure, whose lightness is highlighted by the movement of clothes and veils, in a practice of revealing which then arrives at the representation of grace through the nude, both female and male.
2. Moving and convincing become the two key words in religious sculpture: following the work done by Donatello around 1450, emotion and the movements of the soul take their place at the center of artistic practices, in the desire to deeply, even violently, touch the soul of the spectator. It is therefore a true theater of feelings that unfolds in northern Italy between 1450 and 1520, in particular in the "Deposition of Christ" groups, such as those of Guido Mazzoni in Emilia and Giovanni Angelo del Maino in Lombardy. This search for religious pathos is also embodied in the moving figures of Mary Magdalene or Saint Jerome that flourish in Italy in this season.
3. Between the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth century, the tireless reflection on classical antiquity is expressed in the works elaborated starting from the great classical models such as the "Laocoön" or the "Spinario", moving between the two extremes of the Apollonian and of the Dionysian. At the same time as what happens in the field of painting - see the sweet style of Perugino or the young Raphael - sculpture develops the search for a new harmony that transcends the naturalism of extreme gestures and feelings: this occurs in a particularly evident way in Veneto and Lombardy (with Riccio, the Ancient, the Modern, Cristoforo Solari, Antonio Lombardo, up to Bambaia), but this search for expressive beauty is also embodied with equal force in Tuscany (Jacopo Sansovino, Baccio da Montelupo, Andrea della Robbia).
4. Starting from the end of the century, we return to Rome, caput mundi, where Michelangelo is looking for a formal synthesis that integrates the scientific knowledge of the body, the absolute ideal of beauty and the will to overcome nature with art: this research of his is told in the path that, from the youthful classicism of the "Cupid", and through the titanism of the "Slaves" (or "Prisoners", exhibited in Paris), arrives at the ineffable and sublime of the "Pietà Rondanini", which can be admired (only) in Milan.
5. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to delve deeper into the theme of the Pietà thanks to a video-work projected on a loop in the Sala degli Scarlioni - where the Rondanini Pietà was located before its current location - towards the end of the exhibition. The video takes up the theatrical representation “Mater strangosciàs” by Giovanni Testori, a funeral monologue dedicated to Mary of Nazareth, in the contemporary reinterpretation of the Tiezzi-Lombardi Company.

To allow the visitor to understand what music was like between the 16th and 21th centuries, starting from XNUMX pm on Wednesday XNUMX July it will be available on the Facebook and YouTube channels of the Castello Sforzesco and the Civica Scuola di Musica 'Claudio Abbado', the concert "ZEPHYRO SPIRA. Chanson, Frottole and Villanesche in the early Renaissance", performed and filmed behind closed doors by the Civica Scuola di Musica 'Claudio Abbado'.

The exhibition is accompanied by a prestigious scientific catalogue, published in Italian and French, edited by Officina Libraria, winner of the Prix ​​du catalog d'exposition 2021.

Link to the press release and press kit: https://bit.ly/3tu0Jew.

Info card

Exhibition opening times

10am - 19.30pm from Tuesday to Sunday
Monday closed
Last entry 18.30pm (only visitors already in possession of a ticket. The ticket office closes at 16.30pm)
The Castle museums close on Mondays, December 25th, January 1st, May 1st.

tickets

The ticket is unique for the Castle museums and for the exhibitions:
€ 10,00 entire
€8,00 reduced for 18-25 year olds, over 65s and holders of the voucher attached to the tickets for the "Estate Sforzesca" shows (from 11 June to 8 September)
Free under 18 and, for everyone, every first and third Tuesday of the month starting from 14pm

For the complete list of categories entitled to reductions and free tickets: https://www.milanocastello.it/it/content/orari-e-biglietteria.

Guided tours

To Artem T. 02.6597728 info@adartem.it
Work of Art T. 02.45487400 info@operadartemilano.it
Civita Exhibitions and Museums serviziculturali@civita.art

Access mode

In compliance with the Prime Ministerial Decree of 2 March 2021 art. 14 entries to the exhibition will be limited. Reservation is not mandatory but is strongly recommended to avoid waiting and ensure entry. The reservation takes place through the online purchase of the entrance ticket to the Castle museums and the selection of the day and time slot, which corresponds to the entry time to the exhibition.

Info

T. 0288463700
www.milanocastello.it