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An exhibition on Rubens had been missing in Rome for years, this one in particular hosted by Galleria Borghese follows two exhibitions in Mantua, a city that had important links with the painter thanks to the important commissions received from Vincenzo Gonzaga.
The artist was born in Antwerp in 1577, in 1600 he arrived in Italy where he studied ancient statues and approached his contemporaries, responding to commissions from the Gonzagas and two religious orders: the Jesuits in Genoa and the Oratorians in Fermo and Rome where he remained 8 years. For the Chiesa Nuova he executed an altarpiece on slate, hiding the sacred icon behind a door created in the pictorial apparatus itself and, for Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, the cycle of Saint Helena.
The myth of the Baroque
The exhibition responds to various themes: the myth of the Baroque, the reinterpretation of classical busts and current sculpture in a pictorial key, the ability to vivify the bodies turned in marble by adding the color paste and the softness of the flesh – as can be appreciated in The Death of Seneca -, the fascination for Caravaggio and Titian.
In front of an artist of his caliber one is enraptured, yet some exhibition solutions leave one dumbfounded. It is true that conceiving an exhibition intervention in such sumptuous rooms, filled with so much richness and equipment as to confuse the senses, is not at all a simple task. The salmon pink movable walls designed to accommodate and distinguish the 50 works part of “Il Tocco di Pigmalione. Rubens and sculpture in Rome” from the rest of the works in the 8 museum rooms (a solution adopted in other shades for the previous exhibitions) appear dull, almost a remedied solution to put one’s hands forward and not dare to make a risky move.
Venus and Adonis
Once through the entrance we are assailed by the brutality of the chained Prometheus, whose violence could only be surpassed by the Torment of Prometheus by Salvator Rosa (Spada Gallery), Saturn devours one of the sons of Antwerp (at the Prado) or Goya’s version of the same subject. The mastery with which Rubens outlines the naked bodies as in Venus and Adonis – lifeless, with the wound in the groin inflicted by the boar and the muscles tense while he is lying on his back -, the red cheeks and the wet silk hair of golden light in Susanna and the Elders – the only painting together with The Lamentation of the Dead Christ owned by Galleria Borghese – also derives from the study of Correggio’s sweet delicacy and from the comparison with Titian’s women. Rubens is defined as the champion of naturalism and this is evident in the splendid drawings included in the exhibition: the Anatomical Studies (circa 1603-1604) from the Metropolitan Museum (NY), the copy from the Belvedere Torso, the Lion at rest with the retouches in white tempera (from the British Museum in London).
While the resolved Christ and the Saint Sebastian tended by the angels of Rubens are compared with the ivory figurine of Saint Sebastian by Georg Petel, the study of the statuary, numismatics and engraved cameos is manifested in the rendering of the imperial portraits of profile: Agrippina and Germanicus are enlivened by the painter’s bright and sensual diaphanous brushstrokes. One of the most evocative and successful rooms is undoubtedly the one dedicated to the magnetism that Titian had for the Nordic artist. A short circuit of references is created between Sacred Love and Profane Love, an early work by Titian, The Judgment of Paris by Rubens (from the Prado), the Three Graces (2nd century AD replica from a Hellenistic example), the drunken Silenus with Egle and putti – gilded bronze and lapis lazuli based on a model by Duquesnoy – reminiscent of Vecellio’s Offering to Venus for the surrender of the putti -. The exhibition therefore helps to understand how a sensitive artist reflected on the sense of the classic and on the Italian manner, expressing himself in the key of a naturalism with mythical inflections.