DOI Heft:
Nr. 3-4
DOI Artikel:Kilian, Joanna; Kilian, Adam: A Stage Design for Caravaggio
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18945#0262
a curtain-like perspective, covering them with a soft violet velvet and closing
them from above with a photographic enlargement of a stucco decoration
with a view of the Shroud of Turin held aloft by two angels (slide 1.5x6m).
This decoration, the work of Pietro Castelli, Pietro Intralegni and Francesco
Maria Marcheselli, came from the arch of the Capella della Pietà of the Church
of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome, the original location of Caravaggio’s
Déposition. As in the church chapel, the symmetrically suspended shroud in the
vaulted ceiling was an ideal key for interpreting the iconography of The
Deposition, a painting illuminated in the darkness by a focused shaft of light
and already visible from the perspective of the next room.
The culminating point of the exhibition contained only the painting.
Everything superficial was eliminated. Caravaggio’s style itself, his mastery
of light, shade, and obscurity, inspired our illumination of the work with
light emerging from the darkness. We focused the light so it would fall on
the painting in a beam that was visible from afar, and which then dispersed
on the surface of the canvas. We strove to create an atmosphere that
alluded to the painting’s historical context. Caravaggio’s paintings are
most lively and astonishing in the murky chapels of Roman churches.
Those of his works which are today still preserved in their original
locations as part of the integral iconographie design of the chapels
continue to impress the viewer with redoubled strength. Perhaps we
succeeded in conveying the theatrical effect of illusion, recreating an
atmosphere that enabled the viewer to experience a lovely, unrepeatable,
and particular moment, a brief and immediate encounter with an original
masterpiece. A beam of light from behind the painting enticed the viewer
to the next room.
Very often in stage design certain apparently accidental events become the
inspiration for a creative idea. During a few weeks spent in Venice, we
participated in a church feast that involved the traditional dressing of the
marble columns of a church nave with damask “dresses”. Draped with precious
fabrics, the traditional veined-marble columns acquired additional splendour.
Our exhibition concept and its basic stage principles were thus based on
a citation from an authentic traditional religious ritual. In theatrical style,
thirty-six columns were upholstered in thick jacquard. Three successive rooms,
each with a different colour theme, repeated the pattern of the first room’s
colonnaded interior, with the colonnade interrupted along the length by long
walls creating symmetrical exedra between the columns. These individual
rooms recreated the environment of the various national versions of
Caravaggism. Similar entablatures supported by columns bore signs indicating
the names of the different important centers in which followers of Caravaggio
worked.
The Italian room, representing Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Venice, was
painted in burnt umber, while the Spanish, Neapolitan and French room was
done in burgundy. Dutch and German painting was exhibited in an
olive-coloured room.
252
them from above with a photographic enlargement of a stucco decoration
with a view of the Shroud of Turin held aloft by two angels (slide 1.5x6m).
This decoration, the work of Pietro Castelli, Pietro Intralegni and Francesco
Maria Marcheselli, came from the arch of the Capella della Pietà of the Church
of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome, the original location of Caravaggio’s
Déposition. As in the church chapel, the symmetrically suspended shroud in the
vaulted ceiling was an ideal key for interpreting the iconography of The
Deposition, a painting illuminated in the darkness by a focused shaft of light
and already visible from the perspective of the next room.
The culminating point of the exhibition contained only the painting.
Everything superficial was eliminated. Caravaggio’s style itself, his mastery
of light, shade, and obscurity, inspired our illumination of the work with
light emerging from the darkness. We focused the light so it would fall on
the painting in a beam that was visible from afar, and which then dispersed
on the surface of the canvas. We strove to create an atmosphere that
alluded to the painting’s historical context. Caravaggio’s paintings are
most lively and astonishing in the murky chapels of Roman churches.
Those of his works which are today still preserved in their original
locations as part of the integral iconographie design of the chapels
continue to impress the viewer with redoubled strength. Perhaps we
succeeded in conveying the theatrical effect of illusion, recreating an
atmosphere that enabled the viewer to experience a lovely, unrepeatable,
and particular moment, a brief and immediate encounter with an original
masterpiece. A beam of light from behind the painting enticed the viewer
to the next room.
Very often in stage design certain apparently accidental events become the
inspiration for a creative idea. During a few weeks spent in Venice, we
participated in a church feast that involved the traditional dressing of the
marble columns of a church nave with damask “dresses”. Draped with precious
fabrics, the traditional veined-marble columns acquired additional splendour.
Our exhibition concept and its basic stage principles were thus based on
a citation from an authentic traditional religious ritual. In theatrical style,
thirty-six columns were upholstered in thick jacquard. Three successive rooms,
each with a different colour theme, repeated the pattern of the first room’s
colonnaded interior, with the colonnade interrupted along the length by long
walls creating symmetrical exedra between the columns. These individual
rooms recreated the environment of the various national versions of
Caravaggism. Similar entablatures supported by columns bore signs indicating
the names of the different important centers in which followers of Caravaggio
worked.
The Italian room, representing Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Venice, was
painted in burnt umber, while the Spanish, Neapolitan and French room was
done in burgundy. Dutch and German painting was exhibited in an
olive-coloured room.
252