The painting of religious subjects at the Venice Biennali 1895-1914

The analysis of documentary sources provided by the catalogues of theVenetian Biennali, from the first in 1885 to the last preceding the firstworld war (1914), shows how pictorial production of the religious subject,as yet little studied, though not very numerous, had earned awards andrecognition, was sold and held in high regard by the public, critics and theItalian and foreign press of the time.Religious works became famous: as in the case of the Madonnina(1897) by Roberto Ferruzzi which, thanks to the Alinari photographicreproductions, became one of the best-known and loved images in Italianpainting at the end of the Nineteenth century, by transforming a traditionalsubject into something popular.The 1901 Biennale boasts the greatest number of sacred paintings; thefourth edition of the Venetian exhibition also presents two personal exhibitionsof Gaetano Previati (who shows drawings of religious subjects, suchas Saint Paul and the Deposition) and Domenico Morelli with «The Depositionof Christ, Christ mocked, Jairus' daughter, Christ on the waters, Christtempted, as well as two versions of the Temptations of Saint Anthony». Bothexhibitions are indicative of the importance and role of the religious themein relation to developments and the historical artistic trends of the period:in fact, both artists, prefer the use of the traditional sacred theme to underlinehow the principal artistic problem, at the turn of the Nineteenth-Twentieth centuries, was that concerning new formal solutions.Moreover the Biennale of 1909, during which a personal exhibition ofFranz von Stuckwas shown, should mentioned: there were numerous religiousworks in which mankind's constant and unceasing search into thedeepest meanings of his spirit, the true subtlety of feeling, the depth ofresearch, the intensity of expression is powerfully revealed.In the 1910 Biennale, as in the two following, it is clear to see howwith a great number of European artists there is a widespread aptitudefor search and probe into the mystery of man and all that surroundshim: as in the case of Gustav Klimt. It should be emphasized how thereis no common, homogeneous code capable of representing this new sensitivity,but rather how the problem seems to be the search for a languagecapable of showing and representing the spirit, expressed clearly in thesacred character.