Exhibition of masterpieces from the Vatican Pinacoteca in the Tretyakov Gallery. The Vatican Museums brought masterpieces from their collection to the Tretyakov Gallery

I'm telling...
My wife and I purchased tickets in advance via the Internet for November 25th, entrance at 11:30. We arrived about 10 minutes before, stood for a while with the same “ticket holders” and all went inside together on time. Then we wandered around the halls as much as we wanted. Other citizens stood in a very long queue in the morning, from which they let in 10 people every half hour.

The exhibition is organized very well. The paintings are hung correctly and have a good background. The signatures deserve special praise - they are written in large letters, so it is very convenient for people with low vision: they can read everything without glasses.

The exhibition occupies three halls, and in one of them - the third - there are only eight works by a hitherto unknown master: Donato Creti. I'll tell you about them at the very end.

So the main and most interesting part of the exhibition fit into two very small halls. And that's good: it's not tiring. The audience was mainly made up of middle-aged and elderly people, many with sticks and crutches... This is my dearly beloved Soviet intelligentsia, to whom I myself belong, and for whom I have the warmest and most respectful feelings. They are the guardians and custodians of culture, tradition, moral standards and life in general. Those scum who, as I read, are or have recently held a coven called the “Congress of the Russian Intelligentsia” do not come here. For them, the government that is hated and insulted by them, but serves and serves them, organizes separate “closed” shows with invitation cards. But - God be with them! Their end is disgusting and not far off... (At this point I consider my political fervor completely spent: let's go to the exhibition!)

Photography is prohibited and is monitored closely. But a lot has already been posted on the Internet, which I took advantage of.

There are 16 works in the first hall. The exhibition opens with Christ Blessing, 12th century.

The second oldest work is “Saint Francis” (Margaritone d’Arezzo).

"Jesus before Pilate" (Pietro Lorenzetti):

“Scenes from the life of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (Fra Angelico) attract attention with an unexpectedly joyful and bright color (which, however, this photograph does not convey):

In Carlo Crivelli’s painting “Lamentation,” to my complete surprise, I saw almost all the painting techniques that the Pre-Raphaelites so effectively adopted. It will be interesting to know if this has occurred to others as well?

The central place in the first room is rightfully occupied by Giovanni Bellini’s Lamentation of Christ. This is, of course, a masterpiece:

I note that in the entire exhibition there are not so many works that I unconditionally considered “true masterpieces”. Despite, sometimes, great names...

Further - if you continue to look around the first room “in the sun”, there hangs a long work by Ercole de Roberti “The Miracles of St. Vincenzo Ferrara”, which is distinguished by its lively plot with many characters and high decorativeness in general.

Here is a fragment of it enlarged.

The exhibition of the first hall ends with two small works by Perugino, one of which I unconditionally classify as a coloristic masterpiece: “Saint Justina” (until recently considered “Saint Flavia”). I will say again that the photo does not convey the fullness of the shades. However, this phrase applies to all illustrations:

And among them there are also genuine masterpieces. A little - but there is. (Without classifying anything as a “true masterpiece,” I am not just subjective: I am also subject to the influence of momentary moods, the vagaries of the weather, fluctuations in prices for rare metals, political news, visitors who happen to be nearby... In general, you should not take my notations seriously.)

I will, however, list all the works - in the order in which they appear when walking around the hall from left to right.

"Trinity with the Dead Christ" (Lodovico Carracci):

“Judith and the maid with the head of Holofernes” (Orazio Genileschi):

"The Denial of Saint Peter" (Pensionante del Saracene?):

Nearby is one of the central paintings of the exhibition: “Entombment” (Caravaggio):

To his right is the famous painting “St. Matthew and the Angel” by Guido Reni (an undoubted masterpiece):

To her left is “Christ in Glory” by Correggio:

There is much that is unprecedented in this exhibition. These are 42 exhibits from the permanent exhibition (at the opening it was said that almost 10% of the Vatican Pinakothek came to the State Tretyakov Gallery), which rarely leave their native and almost literally prayed-for walls. This is also a political component that patronizes the current artistic tours at the highest state level (the Tretyakov Gallery managed to bring to Moscow almost all the works commissioned from the Vatican, which is why a series of religious subjects turns into an almost continuous history of the development of styles in Italian art from the 12th to the 18th centuries) . This is also a special scenographic solution for the exhibition area - with a huge, illuminated logo from the inside and false walls that change the usual geometry of the halls on the third floor of the Engineering building of the Tretyakov Gallery (design “Roma Aeterna” and Agnia Sterligova). One of them, like the architectural plan of St. Peter's Church, has an octagonal shape, and the other, like the square in front of the main Vatican Basilica, is round.

Set of rules

The strict rules of accreditation and photography at the exhibition also have no analogues. At the press screening, journalists were repeatedly warned (and even forced to sign a special receipt for non-violation of the requirements set by the management of the Vatican Museums) that the paintings could not be removed entirely or, especially, in parts. It is possible only in the interior, against the background of a wall, and even better, so that several canvases fall into the frame at once. TV crews were prohibited from zooming in on the works with television cameras and taking close-ups of the paintings. This, however, is quite problematic in itself due to the specific exhibition design of the two main halls, covered to the top with wooden panels. In order to protect the paintings from visitors, the designers made smooth but high plinths that set the exhibits back to a distance slightly more than an arm's length. Because of which they all acquire an additional aura (“distance of the close,” if you remember the definition Walter Benjamin), finally turning into sacred objects of religious worship.

Light and color

As a result, you don’t get very close to masterpieces - except perhaps for tiny grisailles Raphael, exhibited in a separate showcase, and the astronomical cycle of Bolognese Donato Creti. His eight paintings are shown in the additional, well-lit third room. Less fortunate were the paintings from Baroque times, which occupied the largest hall, where twilight reigns.

Exhibition lighting, which museum workers constantly use on imported projects, creates additional difficulties of perception. Of course, it is extremely impressive when light rays directed at paintings turn them into windows of the heavenly world. However, this approach has many disadvantages associated with uncontrollable glare and blind spots creeping inside the frames. (stops working with small-sized exhibits that tell some particularly narrative stories with a lot of miniature details.) At the current exhibition, in addition to proto-Renaissance and Renaissance paintings Pietro Lorenzetti, Alesso di Andrea, Mariotto di Nardo,Giovanni di Paolo, this especially applies to the horizontally elongated two-meter composition “The Miracles of St. Vincenzo Ferrer” by the Bolognese master Ercole de Roberti, occupying a separate fence.

In the first room, where the lighting is normal, the oldest - and even ancient - exhibits are located. This is where two works are shown Perugino, large compositions Giovanni Bellini(pinnacle “Lamentation of Christ with Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and Mary Magdalene”) and lunette Carlo Crivelli, as well as even earlier Fra Beato Angelico, Gentile da Fabriano And Margaritone d'Arrezo, whose “Saint Francis of Assisi” of the 13th century is not yet the earliest work in the exhibition (the epigraph to it is the very Byzantine-like “Christ Blessing” of the Roman school of the 12th century). However, the most noticeable decoration of the first hall are three fragments of the fresco Melozzo da Forli with angels playing musical instruments (in the Vatican Pinacoteca there are 14 such individual episodes from the once single painting “The Ascension of Christ”). It is their graceful emblematic faces that are featured on posters, billboards, banners and the cover of the catalogue.

Explanations below and personalized tickets

Now that the press screenings have passed and the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery are filled with ordinary visitors, it will be interesting to see how the inscriptions and explanations located on the plinths will work: will they be visible in the dense stream of spectators? And finally, a completely new situation arose with the sale of tickets allowing access to the third floor of the Engineering Building on Lavrushinsky Lane. There is simply no online sale of tickets for the Vatican exhibition, this is written on the museum’s website. Regular paper tickets are sold out until December 31 of this year. From December 15, the Tretyakov Gallery box office will begin selling tickets for the 2017 sessions (the exhibition will last until February 19). And these tickets will be personalized, since during the previous ones, which were accompanied by long queues, museum workers were faced with numerous resellers offering tickets at prices that were several times inflated.

Exhibition name: Roma Aeterna. Masterpieces of the Vatican Pinacoteca. Bellini, Raphael, Caravaggio

Where: Tretyakov Gallery in Lavrushinsky Lane, Engineering Building

Number of exhibits: 42 paintings from the permanent exhibition of the Vatican Pinacoteca

An exhibition of masterpieces from the permanent collection of the Vatican Museum, which extremely rarely leave their native walls, will be opened at the Tretyakov Gallery on November 25, 2016. The head of the gallery, Zemfira Tregulova, previously reported that the implementation of this project is carried out on the initiative of Pope Francis and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The title of the exhibition contains the famous Latin phrase about the eternal city – Roma Aeterna, which means “Eternal Rome” in Latin. The influence of Italian fine arts on the cultures of other countries is undeniable. This exhibition will be continued by a subsequent return exhibition of works by Russian artists from Russian museums.

The halls of the Tretyakov Gallery will display masterpieces of the 12th–18th centuries, including works by Giovanni Bellini, Melozzo da Forli, Perugino, Raphael, Caravaggio, Guido Reni, Guercino, Nicolas Poussin.

The curator of the exhibition, Hermitage specialist Arkady Ippolitov notes: “These are things that almost never leave Rome, and Zelfira Tregulova and I, when we managed to get them, were absolutely happy. Of course, not everything was given according to the preliminary list, but that’s what I was counting on: the Tretyakov Gallery, and with it Moscow and Russia, received the most important things.”

The exhibition will feature three angels playing musical instruments, Melozzo da Forli- these are frescoes removed from the wall of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome back in the 18th century. These frescoes were preserved despite the fact that Pope Clement XI ordered in the 18th century to remove all the paintings in order to repaint the walls in a modern style. From the grandiose ensemble of Melozzo, pieces of frescoes depicting his angels remained, which are now carefully preserved. But even what remains is truly beautiful.”Removed frescoes are not easy to transport; they are provided by the Pinakothek for exhibiting to other museums extremely rarely, but we will have as many as three angels,” noted Arkady Ippolitov.

If you haven’t had time to visit the Vatican Museums, then this exhibition is a chance to see masterpieces in the originals. Tickets are already on sale on the Tretyakov Gallery website. Visiting the exhibition will be organized in sessions of 30 minutes each. The cost of visiting is 500 rubles.

An article about Raphael's paintings at the exhibition of masterpieces at the Vatican Pinacoteca is located

September 20, 2018

When you find yourself in the arms of one of the most famous museums in the world, you involuntarily begin to lose your head at the beauty that lies behind its walls. Vatican Art Gallery is replete with works of art, carefully preserved by museum workers for many decades. Pinacoteca Vatican, whose history begins with a small collection of Pope Pius VI (1775-1799), today contains about half a thousand works of art on religious themes from the 12th to 19th centuries, exhibited in chronological order in 18 rooms. In this article we will talk about the most famous paintings of the gallery, which are definitely worth seeing.

Art of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance

The first six rooms of the Vatican Art Gallery display works by medieval artists of the Siena, Umbrian, Florentine schools, as well as some works from the early Renaissance. Among the most famous are the Last Judgment by Niccolò and Giovanni (mid-12th century), the Stefaneschi triptych, works by Giotto, works by Gentile da Fabriano - Polyptych Quaratesi and Annunciation, as well as works by Pietro Lorenzetti, Filippo Lippi, Giovanni di Paolo, Beato Angelico and others.

Giotto. Stefaneschi triptych

Particularly noteworthy are the frescoes of Melozzo da Forli “Musician Angels”, painted for the vault of the apse of the Basilica of the Holy 12 Apostles in Rome in the second half of the 15th century. The surviving fragments of the painting are presented in room IV.

Among the most famous works of early Renaissance artists exhibited in the Vatican Gallery are paintings by Ercole de Roberti, Bartolomeo Montagna, Marco Bazaiti, and the German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder.

Works by Perugino and Giovanni di Pietro

The works of famous representatives of the Umbrian school - Pietro Perugino and his student Giovanni di Pietro - can be admired in Hall VII of the Vatican Pinacoteca. The following paintings are presented here:

• Altar of the Decemvirs. Pietro Perugino. Late 15th century
• Saint Benedict, Saint Flavia and Saint Placis (fragments of the polyptych “Annunciation”). Perugino. Beginning of the 16th century.
• Resurrection of San Francesco al Prato. Perugino. 1499

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Pinacoteca Vatican: Raphael Hall

One of the most famous art halls Vatican galleries is a room where exclusively works by Rafael Santi are presented. In the central part of the room, three altar paintings are exhibited, and along its perimeter are tapestries made according to the drawings of the master and his students.

General view of the exhibition of paintings in the Raphael Hall. Vatican Art Gallery

Altar of Oddi

At the top of the painting are Jesus and the Virgin Mary surrounded by angels playing musical instruments. At the bottom are the apostles gathered around a blooming sarcophagus. The Predella consists of three scenes: “The Annunciation”, “Adoration of the Magi” and “Introduction to the Temple”.

The work was painted in 1503 by order of Maglalena Oddi as an altar image for the church of San Francesco a Prati in Perugda. At the end of the 18th century it was taken to Paris, but at the beginning of the 19th century it returned to Italy, and thanks to Pope Pius VII it became part of the collection of the Vatican Pinacoteca.

Madonna di Foligno

The Virgin Mary is represented in the painting in a robe of two traditional colors: red, characterizing her as the Mother, and blue, as the Queen of Heaven. At her feet, against the background of the landscape, are depicted in pairs Saint John the Baptist and Francis of Assisi on the left and Saint Jerome and the kneeling customer of this work - Sigismondo de Conti, dressed in a purple robe trimmed with fur.

The painting was painted in 1511 and for a long time adorned the main altar of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli.

Transfiguration

Obna from the most valuable paintings of the Vatican Pinacoteca - the last work of Raphael, painted in 1520 by order of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, who later became Pope, known as Clement VII.

The plot of the work combines two unrelated episodes described in the Gospel: the Transfiguration of Christ and the expulsion of the unclean spirit from the young man by the apostles. At the top of the picture is Jesus floating in the air, next to him are the prophets Moses and Elijah. At the feet of the Savior lie Peter, John and James, amazed by the bright light, in traditional attire, symbolizing faith, hope and love.
At the bottom of the picture are the apostles trying to heal a young man from an unclean spirit that had entered him.

Faith, Charity and Hope

Three small paintings representing faith, mercy and hope are the lower part of the altar image - the predella. They were painted in 1507 by order of representatives of the noble Peruginian family of Baglioni for the family chapel, as well as the main altarpiece “Entombment”, which today is kept in the Borghese Gallery.

Leonardo da Vinci, Titian and Caravaggio in the Vatican Gallery

Works by famous Renaissance painters are displayed in several rooms of the Vatican Art Gallery. In addition to paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Titian and Caravaggio, in the museum you can admire works by Giovanni Bellini, Correggio, Benvenuto Tisi, Paolo Veronese, Moretto, Guido Reni, Federico Barocci, Giorgio Vasari, Domenichino and many others. No less interesting are the works of Raphael’s students, presented in Hall X.

Giovanni Bellini "Pieta". Second half of the 15th century

Leonardo da Vinci. "Saint Jerome". 1480 g

Titian. "Madonna". 1533-35

Titian. "Portrait of Doge Nicolo Marcello"

Veronese. "Vision of Saint Helena". 1580 g

"Christ Blessing", XII century.
Vatican Museums.

The exhibition opens with a 12th-century icon painted by an unknown Roman master. “Christ Blessing” is a unique reminder of the unity of the Christian church, which will help to trace the parallels between European and ancient Russian art. The Italian Jesus of the 12th century is very similar to the popular image of Russian icons - the Almighty Savior.

The main masterpiece of the exhibition

Michelangelo Merisi, nicknamed Caravaggio. "Position in the grave." Around 1602-1602. Canvas, oil. Vatican Museums.

At the beginning of the 17th century, this painting made a small revolution. The non-standard, tragic and at the same time simple composition destroyed the stereotypes that had developed by that time in painting (just as “Black Square” trampled them at the beginning of the 20th century). Through the efforts of the reformers, Catholicism was going through hard times - many saw the salvation of the church in a return to ancient Christian simplicity and vitality. Caravaggio was one of them.

The most poetic painting

Paolo Cagliari, nicknamed Paolo Veronese. Vision of Saint Helena. Around 1575-1580. Canvas, oil. Vatican Museums.

Hardly anyone will pass by the large-scale painting of the famous Veronese. Before us is Saint Helena, the mother of the first Roman Christian emperor, Constantine. An angel appeared to the heroine and urged her to go to Jerusalem in search of that same cross. Usually the saint was depicted with an already found cross in her hand, but Veronese decided to paint her sleeping - directly during the vision. But this is not the only canon violated by the Italian. According to legend, Elena saw the angel already in old age, and on the canvas we see a young Venetian beauty. Veronese did not think long about who to take as a model, and chose his own wife. The sleeping saint in the portrait repeats the appearance of the artist’s wife, who, by a happy coincidence, was also named Elena.

An exhibit with an unusual history

Donato Creti. "Astronomical observations". 1711 Oil on canvas. Vatican Museums.

The work, for which a whole hall was dedicated, is interesting both in its plot and in its history. Before us is a kind of space comic of the 18th century: the artist Donato Creti wrote the series “Astronomical Observations”, depicting all the planets of the solar system known at that time. During the Age of Enlightenment, scientific stories began to fully compete with biblical ones. But the most interesting thing is this: “Astronomical Observations” were written by order of Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili and were intended as a gift to Clement XI. So the aristocrat hoped to convince the Pope to give money for the construction of an observatory in Bologna. It’s good that the popes took bribes with art - now we have something to look at.

A masterpiece that not everyone will notice

Gentile da Fabriano. “Saint Nicholas calms the storm and saves the ship,” circa 1425. Tempera on wood. Vatican Museums.

Gentile da Fabriano is a little lost in the shadow of famous neighbors like Raphael and Caravaggio. Meanwhile, his small canvas with the ponderous title “St. Nicholas Calms the Storm and Saves the Ship” is very interesting: there was a place in it for both the biblical saint, who, like Superman, flies in and saves the unlucky sailors, and a pagan mermaid. What does the fish woman have to do with it? In medieval symbolism, mermaids personify demonic power - so it caused a storm, which St. Nicholas “pacifies.”

Exhibition “Roma Aeterna. Masterpieces of the Vatican Pinacoteca."
, Lavrushinsky lane, 12, until February 19, 2017.