CHANGE LANGUAGE

Milano: Castello Sforzesco, an exhibition recounts the best of the sanguine works from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century

Forty ancient drawings and ten engravings are on display, a precious selection, from Leonardo to the Academies, the result of international research. 

Milano: Castello Sforzesco, an exhibition recounts the best of the sanguine works from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century.

Until August 8th, in the Salette della Grafica at the Sforzesco Castle, the exhibition is open to the public with free admission “… to play different lines. Red stone drawings from Leonardo to the Academies”, a new event promoted by the Municipality of Milano-Culture and Castello Sforzesco linked to the valorisation of the artistic heritage of the city which will allow the public to admire, among others, the famous “Head of Leda”, drawing attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and kept in the Cabinet of Drawings.

The result of an international research project, in which scholars from Dutch universities and Italian researchers participated, the exhibition, curated by Michael W. Kwakkelstein and Luca Fiorentino, is a selection of sheets executed in sanguine between the end of the fifteenth century and the first decade of the 'nineteenth century, created by different artists, some of which are of great importance for the history of Italian art.

Sanguinary stone is a natural stone extracted in various places in Europe and used in different sectors (from architectural drawings to tailoring) and which, towards the mid-fifteenth century, became a widely used artistic tool. In fact, important creators chose this medium as the preferred medium for the study of their first thoughts on paper: from the sketch to the anatomical study, from the overall project to the study of details.

The sanguine medium boasts varied possibilities of technical use: contour line and crossing chiaroscuro treatment, nuanced (by rubbing the fingers on the dust, with the smudge or by pressing the tip of the sanguine on the sheet), the famous “red on red” of Leonardo's invention (i.e. drawing in red on a red colored support), intertwining the graphic means as desired (black and red stone, chalk, white lead, watercolour).
It was therefore chosen to investigate the Castle's collections within a chronological period of approximately four centuries: Lombard artists received wider attention, as the civic collections boast names such as Leonardo da Vinci, Francesco Melzi, Ambrogio Figino and also the protobaroque Cerano, Procaccini and Morazzone and finally the classicists of the Academy such as Giuseppe Bossi and Luigi Sabatelli.

The exhibition itinerary, which winds through the two Graphic Rooms of the Castle, includes the following sections: Leonardo and his school, the important restoration of an academic nude attributed to Andrea Sacchi, the techniques (with exhibited materials and videos), the different types of drawing with sheets from the Lombard, Roman, Neapolitan and Venetian schools.
In the catalog accompanying the exhibition, some attribution proposals were also put forward, in the hope of giving life to a scientific dialogue capable of enriching public collections: Jacopo Ranzani (Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris) has studied the use of red stone in the artistic workshops, Francesco Lofano (University of Bari) has studied the Neapolitan painters and their particular use of sanguine in the 17th century starting from a new attribution of a sheet of the Castello to one of the most important Neapolitan artists such as Bernardo Cavallino, Luca Fiorentino (Researcher, NIKI Florence) studied the graphic techniques used in the first half of the seventeenth century BC Milano, Alessia Alberti explains the various collections from which the exhibited drawings come.

The contribution of the Dutch students was possible thanks to the support of the Friends of NIKI Foundation.
The graphic design of the exhibition was created by the students of the Civica Scuola d'Arte & Messaggio.
Info su www.milanocastello.it

The Drawing Cabinet of the Sforzesco Castle
The Civic Cabinet of Drawings was founded in the 1920s to offer an adequate placement for works of art on paper, which had begun to flow into the city's collections starting from the mid-19th century on the initiative of artists and members of the aristocracy Milanese.

Over time, the collection has grown and today includes approximately 35.000 drawings by Italian and foreign masters from the XNUMXth century to the present day, with a particular wealth of Lombard examples.

The Graphics Rooms at the Sforzesco Castle
Inaugurated in 2020 with an exhibition-homage to Raphael through the work and collection of Giuseppe Bossi, the Salette della Grafica were created with the aim of making accessible, in rotation, the graphic heritage of the Sforzesco Castle, a precious archive of prints and of drawings which, for conservation reasons, is normally kept in rooms with controlled temperature and humidity conditions and is not included in the Castle's museum itinerary.

Milano: Castello Sforzesco, una mostra racconta il meglio dei lavori a sanguigna dal cinquecento all'ottocento.

Follow La Milano on our Whatsapp channel

Reproduction reserved © Copyright La Milano

×