Bernini, Caravaggio, Rubens and others: those one-painting shows that destroy art history

In recent times, the scourge of so-called one-painting shows, i.e., exhibitions in which a single work of art is the protagonist, has been spreading with increasing worrying rapidity. Not necessarily a painting, as the locution, recently introduced to designate this type of operation, would lead one to suppose: traveling are indiscriminately paintings, sculptures and, in general, objects of art that, according to the expectations of the organizers, would have the capacity to attract jubilant crowds who throng outside the venues of such exhibitions to revere their idols. The list of these kinds of"exhibitions" (and I am careful to put the term in quotation marks since I find it quite difficult to compare these operations to real exhibitions) over time has become really long, which is why compiling a complete list would be an operation to be conducted with no small difficulty.

To be sure, such a rapid spread of one-painting shows is due to theextreme ease with which events of this kind can be conducted: creating an exhibition around a single work means cutting down the costs of realization, avoiding the problem of placing the works in their context, and of course making sure that the public, too, is led to spare themselves an approach to the exhibition other than a purely ecstatic one. The works of art have thus become new fetishes, and the queues that the public is willing to endure while waiting to admire their artistic idols are not so dissimilar to the lines of the faithful recently flocking to Rome to worship the body of a saint to whom thaumaturgical powers were attributed. And between the saint-taumaturge and the artist-taumaturge, there would seem to be no difference: just as saints were believed to be able to work miraculous healings, in the same way certain artists would be able to arouse priceless emotions in those fortunate enough to see their works.

However, this approach, that of the exhibition with a single work, is completely detrimental to art history. Because it makes one lose sight of a fundamental concept: that according to which the work is always a product of a precise context, and is always an object that stands in relation to other objects. Roberto Longhi also said it: the work of art is a “relative” object. To take a work out of its context (be it the venue in which it was originally placed or a museum in which the work is placed in relation to other objects in order to reconstruct its original context) for an exhibition in which that work becomes a solitary protagonist is to sever its ties with the dense fabric of relationships that enabled the artist to produce it. And if these ties are destroyed, the more difficult (if not impossible) it will be for us to understand that work and its meaning, the message it was intended to communicate, the historical, social, economic and political context within which the author moved, the technique the artist used to make it. It fails, in short, the highest sense of art history: to convey knowledge.

But the mindless displays of masterpieces removed from their places of preservation produce further nefarious effects, which can also be easily guessed by referring to the latest cases. To begin with, the safety of very fragile works is unnecessarily jeopardized: when a few days ago Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Savior, a late work by the great Baroque sculptor, had to leave the Basilica of San Sebastiano fuori le Mura in Rome to move to Agrigento in order to be displayed at the Almond Blossom Festival, Tomaso Montanari, one of the foremost experts on Bernini’s art, suggested that “a sculpture of this prominence and extraordinary fragility (it is a marble, 103 centimeters high, full of delicate ridges and thin projecting bodies, like fingers) should move as little as possible, and only in cases of exceptional cultural depth: for example, an exhibition that would bring together most of the late Bernini marbles.” Nor is it the case to point out how inappropriate it is to exhibit a Bernini work in the context of a festival (albeit an important one with international appeal): it happens, however, when the interests of politics come before those of culture. And, in the case of the Savior’s display, political interests probably did: the patron of the operation was Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, a native of Agrigento, the city that hosts the Sagra del mandorlo in fiore as well as his hometown.

The protagonists of the latest “one-painting shows”: Rubens’ Adoration, Bernini’s Savior(credit), Caravaggio’s Flagellation

But it doesn’t end there: as one might expect, those who lend their works for one-painting shows deprive themselves of works that are often among the most important to the institution, church, or museum that preserves them. Think, for example, of the recent display of Pieter Paul Rubens ’Adoration of the Magi in Milan, which took place during the last holiday season: the painting is perhaps the best known and most significant of those kept at the Pinacoteca Civica di Fermo, which had to deprive itself of it for more than a month. The same will happen in a few days at the National Museum of Capodimonte, which will see Caravaggio’s Flagellation go: in fact, the Lombard painter’s masterpiece will be displayed in another questionable one-painting show at the Villa Reale in Monza. Which is by no means new to such initiatives: already last year a similar operation was conducted with another work by Caravaggio, namely the Saint Francis of Carpineto, in storage in Rome’s Palazzo Barberini. And the subject does not take any step forward, nor progress is made in terms of popularization, also due to the fact that the names proposed by these “one-painting shows” are always the same: Caravaggio, Titian, Bernini, Rubens, Michelangelo, Raphael, the Impressionists and so on.

What to do, then? Resign ourselves to the squalid proliferation of exhibitions of solitary works without anything that can be done to oppose it? Have to submit to the atrocious but increasingly widespread assumption that real exhibitions are excessively tiring for the public, and one-painting shows are instead relaxing and surprising? To accept the idea of finding more and more A4 signs in churches and museums announcing the momentary absence of a departed masterpiece to become the absolute star of an exhibition set up without the slightest scientific criterion? The answer to all these questions is, of course, negative, and opposition to this phenomenon can start from very simple gestures: to demand more culture, more respect for art, to carefully select the exhibitions to visit, both on the basis of what they can give us in terms of emotions (it is clueless to deny that art produces emotions), and on the basis of how much knowledge they can convey. Initiatives that only display one painting are not cultural operations, do not respect art, do not convey knowledge, and often, crowded and chaotic as they are (in Milan, for Rubens, outside Palazzo Marino, I personally saw queues such as to frustrate any calm approach to the work of art), fail even to arouse positive emotions. We must, in short, be more demanding, hungrier for culture. And one-painting shows are not able to stimulate appetite either: art needs more seriousness.

One-painting shows are also discussed in Federico Giannini’s book “A Heritage to Regain” (2016, Talos Editions). Click here for info on where to buy it

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