This large-format and richly illustrated volume analyzes some great masterpieces of painting that marked a fundamental juncture not only in figurative representation, but also in the presentation of complex themes and content, sometimes very difficult to decipher at first glance by a public unaccustomed to recognizing the mechanisms of communication and iconology of past centuries.
Through a selection of significant works ranging from the 15th to the 20th century, the processes of image formation and construction are investigated using the special examinations in use today, such as X-rays, infrared l and reflectographs, and ultraviolet, which highlight the pentimenti and changes in progress before reaching the final formulation of the image.
These examinations, which are fundamental when one also wants to subject paintings to restoration, are essential for reconstructing the travail and executive process followed by the artist in order to arrive at formulating his final version, which, in turn, is loaded with very complex meanings that justify the changes identified in the process. Thus, works were selected that not only from superficial examination reveal the complexity of hidden meanings, but also, and more importantly, paintings that reveal, under the skin, the secrets and mysteries that remained hidden for centuries.
The volume will present and discuss, among others, paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Giorgione, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, David, and Picasso, of which unpublished scientific examinations will sometimes be presented that are useful in shedding light on the “mystery” that always nourishes an artist’s masterpiece.
List of works
- Leonardo da Vinci and collaborators, The Virgin of the Rocks, c. 1492-1506/8 London, National Gallery.
- Bramante, Christ at the Column, c. 1490. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera.
- Leonardo da Vinci, The Mona Lisa,1504-1515. Paris, Museé du Louvre.
- Raphael, The Marriage of the Virgin, 1504. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera.
- Fernando de Llanos, Madonna and Child with Lamb, c. 1504-8. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera.
- Giorgione da Castelfranco, The Tempest, c. 1503-4. Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia.
- Bramantino, Crucifixion, c. 1510. Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera.
- Raphael, Portrait of Pope Leo X with Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi, 1518. Florence, Uffizi Galleries.
- Caravaggio, Martyrdom of St. Matthew, 1599-1600. Rome, Church of San Luigi dei Francesi.
- Rembrandt Harmeszoon van Rijn, Portrait of a Man in Military Costume, c. 1630-31. Los Angeles, The J.Paul Getty Museum.
- David, Coronation of Napoleon, 1805-8. Paris, Musée du Louvre.
- Goya, Portrait of Don Ramon Satue, 1808-1813. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
- Ingres, Monsieur de Morvins, 1811-1814. London, National Gallery.
- Manet, Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882. London, Courtauld Institute.
- Sargent, Portrait of M.me Gautreau (Portrait of M.me X), 1883. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
- Picasso, Guernica, 1937. Madrid, Museo Reina Sophia. (Unpublished scientific examinations useful in shedding light on the “mystery” that always nourishes an artist’s masterpiece)
Edited by.
Pietro C. Marani – Lecturer in Modern Art History, Contemporary Art History and Museology at the Polytechnic University of Milan, and in Renaissance Art History in the School of Specialization in Art History at the Catholic University of Milan. The author and co-author of numerous articles and volumes on art, architecture and thought in the Italian Renaissance, he has edited more than twenty volumes on Leonardo, Leonardo’s painting and the Last Supper, of whose restoration he was co-director.
