|
The vault of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel (1508-1512) can be used as an arbitrary marker for the beginning of this development. For the first time since the ancient times "one plays" with the physical boundaries of the space. The ceiling surface is divided into geometrical fields that subordinate the figures to the framework. Four years were necessary to paint it.
|
|
The next step is the frescoed ceiling of the Carracci Gallery in Palazzo Farnese, painted around 1600. The artistic principle of the Sistine vault is taken up and further developed. We admire the early-baroque innovations in the monumental illusionistic paintings, which "hang" from the ceiling, and in the fictitious breakthrough of the wall at the corners. The axial-symmetrical organization, which enables us to read the frescoes clearly, is however "old".
|
|
|
The magnificient ceiling fresco of the Triumph of Divine Providence was painted by Pietro da Cortona between 1633 and 1639. The representation celebrates the glory of the papacy of Urban VIII and the Barberini family. The allegorical figures "fall down" from the sky through an illusionistic open framework. A new organizational criterion begins to gain ground for the first time here: the breathtaking exasperated dynamics.
|
|
The ceiling fresco in the Jesuit church "Il Gesł" shows the triumph of the name of Jesus. The painter was Gaulli - "Il Baciccia", who worked here from 1674 to 1679. We are struck by the astonishing interpretation of Cortona's artistic motifs. The dynamics are exaggerated to the highest degree, so that the figures seem to spill out on the coffered vaulting of the nave. This is a masterful example of successful co-operation between the stucco decorator and the fresco painter.
|
|
|
The monumental ceiling fresco in Sant'Ignazio di Loyola was executed by Andrea Pozzo between 1691 and 1694. Thanks to his infinite creativity, the painter refused the boundaries between the real surface of the church and the painted field. Pozzo put a marble slab on the floor to indicate the ideal point from which to admire his artistic enterprise.
|
cultural guided tours 
