(ANSA) - A major new show exploring the impact of Caravaggio on other artists has opened amid polemics over the refusal of two Italian museums to loan their pictures.
Caravaggio e l'Europa (Caravaggio And Europe), which runs till February, is destined for a sell-out run at Milan's Palazzo Reale.
Organisers have already received a record-breaking 64,000 advance bookings.
But art critic and gadfly MP Vittorio Sgarbi, who curated the show, was fuming at Friday's unveiling, calling for disciplinary action against the directors of Milan's Brera Museum and Rome's Central Institute of Restoration for refusing to loan their pictures.
"A major show like this one needs everyone's collaboration...how is it possible for Brera to miss out. The director of the Brera has to stop thinking that she owns the pictures," Sgarbi told reporters. His remarks against the chief of the Central Institute
of Restoration were even more scathing. "The Burial of St. Lucy is hidden away somewhere in Rome because Caterina Bon di Valassina has decided it should be locked up...is she the only one allowed to see it? ...I think she should be reported for abuse of office."
Subtitled The International Caravaggio School: From Caravaggio To Mattia Preti, the exhibit charts the adoption of the Italian artist's famous chiaroscuro techniques and his fascination with "real life" through works by a number of different artists. Although boasting around 200 paintings, only 15 will be by Caravaggio himself.
The show seeks to pay homage to numerous other artists who were working at the same time or immediately after, encouraging the public to identify Caravaggesque elements, while also appreciating each piece for its own artistic merit.
"Many of those artists defined as 'Caravaggesque' had the misfortune of being unable to exist without him," remarked Sgarbi, a former culture undersecretary. "Their identity should instead be that of complete artists. They were not just emulators of Caravaggio, but rather, were so enamoured of his art that they followed him in a kind of cult movement."
The collection includes pieces by the Gentileschis, both father and daughter, 16 works by the Spanish-born Jusepe de Ribera and Mattia Preti. This will also help set Caravaggio in his context, providing visitors with a more rounded vision of his work.
However, despite the stated aim of the exhibit, organizers admitted they had been hoping for more works by Caravaggio himself. The last Caravaggio show in Palazzo Reale in 1951 belonged to a different era, said Sgarbi, recalling that Caravaggio was not then the international hit with the general public that he is today.
Consequently, museums and private collectors have been much more cautious about loaning out his works than they once were. "It's as though they were unmovable frescos," quipped Sgarbi. The show's coordinator, Gilberto Algranti, revealed that Culture Minister Rocco Buttiglione had had to personally intervene on more than one occasion to ensure clearance for the loans.
Among the pieces to make the final line-up are Boy Bitten By A Lizard and Salome With The Head Of St John The Baptist, both on loan from the National Gallery. The Crowning With Thorns, The Madonna Di Loreto and The Capture Of Christ will also be on show.
