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Angeli: Messengers, Guardians and Wanderers from Antiquity to the Contemporary
An exhibition in Palazzo dei Conservatori tracing the angelic figure across Western art from antiquity to today, through three sections: messengers, guardians and wanderers.
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Lo Spadarino's Guardian Angel normally hangs in the church of San Rufo in Rieti. Here the angel and the child he protects come out of a dark background, and GB Opera's critic described the light rising so slowly that the angel seems to surface from the shadow.
Three sections follow the angel from ancient winged figures to the 20th century. Messengers gathers Annunciations, including Carlo Dolci's angel from the Uffizi. Guardians pairs Pietro da Cortona's 1656 canvas with the Spadarino. Wanderers turns modern, with Omar Galliani and Osvaldo Licini. You can look at a winged genius carved at Nimrud around 870 BC and, in the same rooms, at Licini's from 1951.
The show is dedicated to Pope Francis, but the critic found it never turns celebratory and praised the slow hang. Until 1 November it comes with the Capitoline ticket: €16.50, €11 reduced, free for Rome residents with ID. It doesn't cover the Rivera show at Villa Caffarelli.
Look for
Lo Spadarino, Guardian Angel (about 1620)
Lent from the church of San Rufo in Rieti, the angel bends over the child in a quiet, domestic scene set against a dark ground.
Pietro da Cortona, Guardian Angel (1656)
A canvas over two metres tall from Palazzo Barberini, where the protective gesture gets full Baroque scale and upward movement.
Carlo Dolci, Angel of the Annunciation (about 1650)
The Uffizi's angel, eyes lowered, its face emerging from a dark background with a smooth, polished finish.
Assyrian relief of a winged genius from Nimrud
A limestone panel from about 870 BC, lent by the Museo Barracco, showing the winged figures the ancient world had long before Christian angels.
Osvaldo Licini, Rebel Angel on a Dark Blue Ground (1951/52)
An oil on masonite where the angel becomes a restless sign floating in an abstract dark-blue space.
Good for
- Going Solo
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You want art without a religious frame: this is a devotional show dedicated to Pope Francis.
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Image credits
8
- Angeli: Messengers, Guardians and Wanderers from Antiquity to the ContemporaryCourtesy of Capitoline Museums
- Marina Bindella. CosmografieCourtesy of Museo Carlo Bilotti
- AEGYPTUS. Dal Nilo al Mediterraneo. Oasi e deserto in epoca romanaCourtesy of National Roman Museum - Palazzo Massimo
- Le Litanie della Vergine di Mario Deluigi. Dialogue between the Sacred and AbstractionCourtesy of Vatican Museums
- Capitoline MuseumsTournasol7 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Galleria ColonnaLalupa, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Galleria Doria PamphiljKrzysztof Golik, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- PantheonRoberta Dragan, CC BY-SA 2.5