 | Guido Reni is one of the most important religious painters in history, famous for his compositions that in part have reinvented the genre, providing it with a new dimension. The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London will host in 2008 an exhibition dedicated to Guido Reni, focusing on a group of the artist's depictions of Saint Sebastian, under the title "The Agony and the Ecstasy : Guido Reni's Saint Sebastians". Aside the work with this subject that is already in the museum's collection, three other versions are on loan from the Palazzo Rosso in Genoa, from the Pinacoteca Capitolina in Rome and the Museo del Prado in Madrid. |
The four artworks made by Guido Reni will be exhibited in the same room, a first time opportunity for visitors to compare the four masterpieces with the same subject. The Dulwich Picture Gallery's version has long been one of the most coveted treasures of the institution, considered to be one of the best known works of Guido Reni.
For Guido Reni the martirage of St Sebastian, with his body ripped by countless arrows, was a subject that both fascinated and hurt him, so he tried to give it a new dimenssion. At the end of the 19th century certain doubts about the Dulwich version's authenticity emerged, and it will be only in 1997-1998, after careful restoration, that the artist's original signature appeared.
Guido Reni created several versions of the St Sebastian theme, after two main, let's call them, prototypes, and especially in the las century scholars have debated about the relationships that existed between these canvases.
Photo : dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk
2007-09-14
