Time.news – For just over a century, in the middle of the Renaissance, aSome great painters tried their hand at the innovative art of stone paintingusing more or less precious bases: from slate, to amethyst, from lapis lazuli to the “touchstone”.
At the base of this choice there is a philosophical concept: the devastation and trauma of the Sack of Rome, which occurred in 1527, had just highlighted the fragility of the works of art, suggesting to find alternative materials to wood and canvas to “confer immortality “To art.
To this technique, first developed by the Venetian Sebastiano del Piomboan exhibition is dedicated to the Borghese Gallery, Meraviglia Timeless, which exhibits about sixty works in the rooms of the museum, surrounded by the masterpieces of the permanent collection.
The natural grain of the stones “forced” the artists to adapt the painted subjects, creating works in which nature and technique are reconciled, explains one of the curators, Patrizia Cavazzini.
“After the Sack of Rome, i painters were under the illusion that the stone supports would make the painting indestructible and therefore eternal“, points out.
The newly inaugurated exhibition will last until 29 January and is composed of some works from the collection created by Scipione Borghese and other fans of the family, but also from foreign museums and private collections.
The most skilled exponents of the stone painting technique were Antonio Tempesta and Filippo Napoletanoparticularly gifted in creating clouds and audiences of adoring cherubs starting from the natural streaks of amethyst, or aquatic backgrounds when they were lucky enough to paint on lapis lazuli.
The therapeutic nature of many of the stones used made the works in question be considered as having a healing effect or even magical power; in some cases, when size allowed, they were also worn as amulets-charms.
The decline, in the mid-seventeenth century, of this pictorial practice, makes the works exhibited a real rarity and has several possible explanations: on the one hand the awareness that not even the stone was truly indestructible, on the other hand the scarcity of materials due to their use for medical treatment in times when the plague was a widespread scourge.