Vitruvian man on display in Venice with ‘modern bodies’

Curated by Guido Beltramini, Francesca Borgo and Giulio Manieri Elia, the review proposes a fascinating investigation on the conception of the human body that is affirmed in the Venice of the Renaissance between art, science and material culture. “Modern bodies” explores, more precisely, the way in which, for the first time, the body was conceived as a scientific field of investigation, the subject of desire and a half of self -expression. The Renaissance marks, in fact, a turning point in which the body is no longer only a biological reality, but a cultural construction, an element shaped by science, art and social conventions.

The exhibition collects extraordinary works of art, some of which presented in Italy for the first time, including drawings, paintings and sculptures from the most prestigious museums and international and national collections with masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci – whose famous man will be exhibited. Vitruviano -, Michelangelo, Albrecht Dürer, as well as Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione, alongside scientific tools, anatomical models, books, clothes, miniatures and everyday objects.

“Modern bodies”, as the three curators tell, is “an exhibition that speaks of us, through the magnifying glass of the Renaissance, when we start to ‘reveal’ the body, bringing the scientific investigation under the skin, and together To ‘sail him’, moving away from what we are as a biological data, to make ourselves a construction, a recited act “.

“The exhibition – also underlines Giulio Manieri Elia, director of the Galleries of the Academy – is developed by relating the exceptional works on loan with some of the masterpieces of the museum, enhancing the permanent collection and the Venetian figurative and artistic tradition”.

The route is divided into three large chapters. The first, entitled “The body revealed: to know”, deepens the discovery of the human body as an object of scientific and medical study, which finds two centers of European relevance for research and publishing in Padua and Venice. On this occasion, after six years, the Vitruvian man of Leonardo, among the icons of the galleries of the Academy and the entire world cultural heritage, returns to the public. The famous drawing will be approached for the first time, on the one hand, to an ancient Greek metrological relief, triggering a reflection on the concept of ‘measure’ and ‘ideal’, which finds ancient origins; And, on the other, he will be placed in dialogue with the ruthless realism of the renowned self -portrait of Dürer with a naked body, coming from the Klassik Stiftung Weimar and exhibited for the first time in Italy.

The second section, “the naked body: desire”, analyzes the representation of the body as an object of gaze and desire. On the one hand, the female naked body, depicted, according to the typical invention of the Renaissance and which will be lucky to the present day, from the lying down and lined up on the landscape. On the other, the lyrical, suffering and sublime male body of the saints and biblical heroes, portraits to ancient times.

The desire of the body that ensures descent and future is staged by domestic objects, and by splendid portraits of young brides who, hiding a breast, invite to a regulated eroticism, according to a very widespread iconographic tradition in the Veneto area. In this sense, the wonderful picture of Titian, lovers, from the English royal collection of Windsor, where the gesture of the man who caresses the uncovered breast of the lover was only recently interpreted as an act that sanctions the wedding bond. On display, also the only known copy of the “Lussuriosi sonnets” by Pietro Aretino (private collection) and a splendid woman’s headphones coming from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The third and last section, “the body built: representing itself”, illustrates the body as a space for cultural representation. Clothes, surgery treaties, cosmetics accessories and body care testify to the need for men and the Renaissance woman to adhere to standards and social models that reflected in their representation, through a specific inventory of symbols and tinsels that defined the male e The female. Among the various objects related to beauty stands out a very rare treasure chest of the 16th century, a sort of contemporary and precious make-up box (private collection), with its content of mirrors, perfumes and objects of self-care, on loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna.

But the review also investigates the idea of ​​overcoming the body itself, exposing the armor and mechanical prostheses used for the first time during the Renaissance to replace the limbs lost in war, corroborating the conception of the body as a field of experimentation, metamorphosis, transformation. The gesture, mimicry, exercise were, moreover, aimed at forging him, beyond his natural data.

“Modern Bodies” constitutes a journey into the body of the early modern age, exploring themes that only mistakenly intend to be exclusive of our time, thus bringing visitors closer to issues that dominate the sciences, arts and myths as of then: nature and The future of humanity, sexuality and reproduction, beauty and aging, the borders of the human, identity.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a large catalog published by Marsilio Arte, edited by Guido Beltramini, Francesca Borgo and Giulio Manieri Elia, with essays of well -known international and Italian scholars. The exhibition is promoted and organized by the Galleries of the Academy of Venice and Marsilio Arte, with the contribution of the Veneto Region and the support of the association of international private committees for the safeguarding of Venice, through which they contributed: small school , Cologni of the crafts of art, Venetian Heritage, Save Venice, Austrian Committee Venedig Lebt, Friends of Museums and Venetian monuments.