At Palazzo Baldeschi, a unique exhibition compares the Renaissance master with one of the most significant artists of the ‘900
On the occasion of the 500th anniversary since the death of Pietro Vannucci said Perugino, the Perugia Foundation in collaboration with the Burri Foundation presents “NERO Perugino Burri” (Perugia, Palazzo Baldeschi, until October 2nd), a tribute to the great Renaissance master in dialogue with one of the most important artistic geniuses of the ‘900. Curated by Vittoria Garibaldi and Bruno Corà, the exhibition is enriched by numerous and prestigious international and national loans (Galleria Nazionale dell’Umbria, Musée du Louvre, Gallerie degli Uffizi): about twenty works in total that identify an exhibition of full immersion in which plays a fundamental role the study of lighting, between the evocative and the mysterious. The common thread is that black color that has always fascinated artists for its persuasive ambiguity.
THE THEME OF THE EXHIBITION IS THE BLACK, WHICH FASCINATES BY ITS PERSUASIVE AMBIGUITY
Perugino and Burri: for both black is knowledge. With some differences. According to Burri, it is a symbol, first of all, of the bare soil (or as Hesiod called it, the black soil) as well as of the disruptor nature of the human being, of his biological tendency to chaos, attracted by the unbridled action and its consequences.
ACCORDING TO BURRI, BLACK IS LIVING, IMPENDING AND ALL-ENCOMPASSING CONTENT, WHICH LEAVES NO WAY OUT
In Burri, the black is therefore the starting point and the final result of a process of creation/destruction without pause, a living, impending and totalizing content that embraces everything without the possibility of escape. Everything is concentrated in the black color and in the material that composes it, both this a harmonious form of humanist memory (Nero cellotex, 1968), are lumpy unicellular elements that survive in the composition (Tar, 1949).
ACCORDING TO PERUGINO, BLACK IS A PICTORIAL TOOL TO BRING OUT FROM THE DARKNESS ALL THAT IS LIGHT
According to Perugino, black is instead an innovative pictorial tool, able to bring out from darkness all that is light: therefore also color, shape and, consequently, material - that for him, as for many of his contemporaries, it has long taken on a deeply intellectual value. In fact, while the composition may not depend on the perspective suggestion (Ritratto di giovinetto, 1497 ca.), every other element - this is a recognizable surface, a sweet complexion, a finely researched garment - becomes a pretext for a transversal narration that disregards the narrated theme, dedicating itself to something else: the spiritual scope that qualifies the portrayed subject, the cultural environment, the most sincere image with all the merits and defects of the case (Ritratto di Francesco delle Opere, 1494).
