GENOA'S SUPERBAROCCO SPLENDOUR
The SCUDERIE DEL QUIRINALE (the Quirinale Stables), Rome's major exhibition venue, has finally put on the major exhibition: “Superbaroque, Art in Genoa from Rubens to Magnasco”, delayed due to the pandemic crisis. The exhibition was first conceived in Genoa as a tribute to the opening of the new San Giorgio Bridge in 2020, which replaced the old Morandi Bridge that collapsed, with tragic consequences, in August 2018.
This exhibition, organized with the collaboration of the Washington National Gallery of Art, was originally programmed to debut in Washington but had to be cancelled, again due to Covid. The US museum, however, continues to maintain the role of co-organizer. The Superbaroque presentation therefore has its first showing in Rome. It features 120 works of art, many on loan from international museums and private collections and focusses on the Genoese Baroque of the 17th and 18th centuries – a period of incredible splendour and prosperity for the “Superba” (the Proud City) as Genoa was called, thanks to the wealth and prosperity it enjoyed.
The status of its leading citizens (Genoa was a republic) is reflected in the magnificent portraits and religious paintings they commissioned from leading Flemish masters like Van Dyck and Rubens. The exhibition opens, in fact, with Rubens' triumphant equestrian portrait of the young Giovan Carlo Doria, elevated to the rank of Knight of St. James of Santiago by the King of Spain. An entire room is dedicated to Van Dyck's striking portraits of aristocratic personages, clad in their magnificent and costly garments.
Another section is dedicated to the development of the still life genre and country scenes, often under the guise of religious subjects or mythological themes, imbued with the individual touch of artists like the impulsive and violent Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, known as Il Grechetto, Valerio Castello and Alessandro Magnasco.
The wealth enjoyed by the upper classes in the period is also represented by a silver statue of the “Immaculate Madonna” from the Museum of the Treasure of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, marble sculptures by Francesco Bigi and stunning pieces of furniture like the spectacular amethyst-topped table by Genovese master woodcarver Ludovico Francesco Perini.
“Superbarocco: Arte in Genoa da Rubens a Magnasco” runs till the 3rd July 2022.
M. STENHOUSE
Info: Tel. Call centre +39.02.92897722 www.scuderiequirinale.it
