Images & Texts

WALL TEXTS
GUIDO RENI. The divine
23 NOVEMBER 2022 TO 5 MARCH 2023
Exhibition annex

Introduction
This exhibition presents the star painter of the Italian Baroque: Guido Reni (1575–1642). Disdained in the nineteenth century and later outstripped in popularity by his contemporary Caravaggio, he today no longer holds the place he deserves in the general consciousness. In his own time, however, Reni was one of the most successful and most celebrated painters not just in Italy but all over Europe. Prominent members of the aristocracy and clergy vied for works by his hand. Reni already earned the epithet “the Divine” during his lifetime. On the one hand it was a reference to his fame as an artist who, well aware of his abilities, was occasionally known to put on diva-like airs. On the other hand, the honorary title il divino points to his subject matter: Guido was the painter of the divine, whether the Christian heaven or the world of the Greek and Roman gods. With his vivid pictorial language he translated the invisibility of the celestial realm into the beauty of painting. The show is the first for more than thirty years to unite Guido Reni’s paintings, drawings, and etchings and offers new perspectives on this fascinating artistic figure.

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