AMARSI. L’Amore nell’Arte da Tiziano a Banksy
From 7 December 2023 to 7 April 2024, Palazzo Montani Leoni in Terni will host the exhibition AMARSI. L’Amore nell’Arte da Tiziano a Banksy (Love in Art from Titian to Banksy), curated by Costantino D'Orazio, with the co-curatorship of Anna Ciccarelli and the collaboration of Federica Zalabra.
The exhibition, conceived as a tribute to Saint Valentine (3rd-4th centuries), protector of lovers and patron saint of Terni, tells a captivating tale that brings together the best-known and most passionate iconographies dedicated to love, the feeling that has most inspired artists over the centuries.
From the purest love, such as that of a mother for her own son, to the seductive love, in which for centuries Venus and Cupid have seduced and condemned the hearts of men and women, until the most problematic and ambiguous relationships described by 20th century artists.
The exhibition consists of 38 works of painting, sculpture and ceramics, from antiquity to the 21st century. The exhibition begins with a tribute to Saint Valentine, who appears in the painting attributed to Giambattista Volpato; it then continues with an archaeological section, where the Venus of Ocriticum and two splendid ceramics with Eros are displayed.
Maternal love in the Renaissance is celebrated by Pintoricchio's Madonna and Child, which is contrasted by the more sensual and provocative figures of Dosso Dossi in the painting Psyche Abandoned by Cupid and by Tintoretto with his Venus with the Three Graces, all the way to the Frans Floris, with Adam and Eve.
Among the showpieces of the collection is the beautiful Venus and Adonis from Titian's workshop, on display for the first time.
The 17th century sees protagonists like Guido Reni with the splendid Allegory of Rejected Love and Guercino's masterpiece Venus, Mars and Love. Neoclassical rigour appears in Antonio Canova's canvases, in which Venus and Cupid exchange tender gestures of affection, such as those between a mother and a son.
The 19th century then introduces us to the romantic imagery of Francesco Hayez, with whom Love becomes a feeling intertwined with the patriotic demands of the Risorgimento. This is what happens in the famous Kiss, whose watercolour sketch and study of the Sicilian Vespers is on display, in which love inspires gestures of great civil commitment for freedom.
The last part of the exhibition, dedicated to the 20th and 21st centuries, displays Giacomo Balla's famous Doubt, Giorgio De Chirico's Hector and Andromache, Mario Schifano's Where Dreams Park and Alberto Burri's series of erotic signs dedicated to Sappho. The exhibition ends with Bansky's Girl with balloon: an invitation to find the most suitable form for each of us to love ourselves.
