An Eye on Michelangelo and Bernini

Aurelio Amendola, detail of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne (1622–25, marble, Borghese Gallery and Museum, Rome, Italy), print on baryta paper with silver salts mounted on aluminum, printed 2021, 39.4 by 27.6 inches

Aurelio Amendola, detail of Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius by Bernini (1618–19, marble, Borghese Gallery and Museum, Rome, Italy), print on baryta paper with silver salts mounted on aluminum, printed 2021, 27.6 by 39.4 inches

Aurelio Amendola, detail of David by Michelangelo (1501–4, marble, Accademia Gallery, Florence, Italy), print on baryta paper with silver salts mounted on aluminum, printed 2021, 47.2 by 56.1 inches

PHOTOGRAPHS BY AURELIO AMENDOLA

Saturday, November 13, 2021 through Sunday, January 30, 2022 East Gallery

This special exhibition developed by the Fine Arts Department features 30 stunning black and white photographs by Aurelio Amendola, a prolific contemporary photographer from Italy.

While Amendola has devoted his career to capturing the likeness of major protagonists in 20th-century art such as De Chirico, Lichtenstein, Pomodoro, and Warhol, he is also well known for his photographs documenting the works of great masters of the Italian Renaissance like Jacopo della Quercia, Donatello, and Michelangelo.

This exhibition features photographic details of some of Michelangelo’s most beloved pieces — David, Pietà, Moses, Victory, and figures from the Tombs of Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici and Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici — alongside details of Bernini’s Damned Soul, David, Apollo and Daphne, Rape of Persephone, and Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius.

Aurelio Amendola, detail of Pietà by Michelangelo (1498–1499, marble, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Italy), print on baryta paper with silver salts mounted on aluminum, printed 2021, 27.6 by 39.4 inches While some of Amendola’s compositions reveal Michelangelo’s and Bernini’s mastery of carving in marble, others are severely cropped into dramatic abstractions. These abstracted visions underscore his lifelong exploration with juxtapositions of light and shadow.

A consummate experimenter, Amendola’s photography practice blends tradition and modernity with great intensity, grace, and melody. Printed in large format on aluminum, the photographs in An Eye on Michelangelo and Bernini show the intimate dialogue Amendola shares with the artists and unveil the style and intensity of the Italian masters from the personal point of view of the photographer.

Related lectures

Philip Rylands, Michelangelo Sculptor Philip Rylands, Bernini Sculptor

Monday, November 29, 2021 at 3 p.m. $20 ■ No charge for Four Arts members Walter S. Gubelmann Auditorium Monday, December 13, 2021 at 3 p.m. $20 ■ No charge for Four Arts members Walter S. Gubelmann Auditorium

A titan of the Italian High Renaissance, the extreme virtuosity of Michelangelo’s technique in sculpture, his style in painting and architecture, his elegance and his expressive force, made him also a source for the Italian Mannerism that came after. Michelangelo (1475-1564) is arguably the greatest sculptor that has ever lived, and certainly the most famous. The greatest of all the Italian Baroque sculptors, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) carved with astonishing skill and inventiveness and surpassed Michelangelo in his liberation of sculptural form from the restraints of the marble block, in his skill in portraiture, and in the invention of theatrical conceits that combine sculpture with real light, space, and architecture.

An Eye on Michelangelo and Bernini was organized by The Society of the Four Arts, thanks in part to an anonymous grant, and is generously supported by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Gill.