Over 20 masterpieces by artists such as Paul Gauguin, Auguste Rodin, Marc Chagall, Maurice Denis, Henri Matisse, Georges rouault interpret the Resurrection of Christ between the 800s and 900s. The works were chosen from the rich nucleus of French art present in the Contemporary Art Collection of the Vatican Museums, commissioned since 1964 by Pope Paul VI.
The Collection with 900 works was inaugurated in 1973 – from different geographical and cultural fields. France was precisely the nation with the richest and most precious collection by virtue of the names of the artists and the selected works; with the transalpine country Montini had had a privileged relationship thanks to important friendships, such as the one with Jacques and Raïssa Maritain, Jean Guitton, and numerous artistic acquaintances with Georges Rouault, Marc Chagall, Gino Severini, Maurice Denis, Alexandre Cingria, as well as with Jean Cocteau and with the surrealist environment.
The works are exhibited in four environments, corresponding to as many thematic nuclei, which lead the public from the Annunciation to the Resurrection of Christ.
La first room it is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus. The woodcuts of Maurice Denis introduce the narrative with illustrations of the moment of the Annunciation, while Henri Matisse e Leonard Tsuguharu Foujita, a Japanese naturalized French artist who converted to Catholicism, show the intimacy of the relationship between the Mother and the Son.
In second, the views of processions created by Paul Gauguin e Auguste Chabaud accompany the visitor's gaze towards Golgotha, where the drama of the martyrdom of the suffering Christ on the cross takes place, interpreted by Georges rouault e Henri Matisse.
The suffering of Christ on the cross is the protagonist of third room, where masterpieces of Marc Chagall, Jean Fautrier, and more of Henri Matisse, in addition to the scratchy engravings of Bernard Buffet.
The itinerary ends with the Resurrection of Emile bernard andthe great triptych of George Desvallières which depicts the "veil of Veronica", the cloth stained with blood and sweat that a pious woman used to cleanse the face of Jesus during the Via Crucis.
The review is curated by Micol Forti, head of the Contemporary Art Collection of the Vatican Museums, and by Nadia Righi, director of the Diocesan Museum, with the patronage of the Lombardy Region, the Municipality of Milan, the Archdiocese of Milan.
Cover image: Auguste Chabaud (Nîmes 1882 – Graveson 1955), La procession. L'Enterrement sort de l'Eglise, ca. 1920, oil on cardboard; © SCV Governorate Directorate of Museums
