{"id":15108,"date":"2025-04-16T11:06:46","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T09:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/?post_type=magazine&p=15108"},"modified":"2025-04-16T11:06:46","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T09:06:46","slug":"body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice","status":"publish","type":"magazine","link":"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\/","title":{"rendered":"The body as measure and revolution: the curators of the exhibition at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia in Venice talk about it"},"content":{"rendered":"Eighty-nine works including drawings, sculptures and paintings are the stars of the exhibition Corpi moderni. The Making of the Body in Renaissance Venice. Leonardo, Michelangelo, D\u00fcrer, Giorgione<\/em>, set up at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia in Venice until 27 July 2025.
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\r\nPutting side by side masterpieces from Italian and foreign museums and collections with those held by the host institution \u2012 such as Leonardo\u2019s Vitruvian Man<\/em>, shown to the public after six years, or Giorgione\u2019s Old Woman<\/em> \u2012, the exhibition describes the transformations that occurred in the concept of the body in Renaissance Venice. Anatomy, desire, social instances become the filters through which to \u201cread\u201d the body, the focal point of a new cultural construction rooted in modern thought.
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\r\nIt is Giulio Manieri Elia, director of the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia and curator of the exhibition together with Guido Beltramini and Francesca Borgo, who highlights this fundamental change in his text in the catalogue published by Marsilio Arte: the exhibition \u201ctackles a theme of major interest: the cultural turning point, which took place during the Renaissance period and which led, through an effort of knowledge and a growth in awareness, to a new consideration of the body – hence the title -, which is the one that belongs to us today. Moreover, […] the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia is the right place for an exhibition dedicated to this theme, by virtue of the fundamental contribution that Padua and Venice made to this significant cultural transition. The former, in the field of anatomical and scientific research, represented by figures such as Andrea Vesalio, and the latter, in the field of publishing production and above all artistic creation by introducing new iconographies that explored the expressive potentialities inherent to the seduction of the body, investigating ways of emotionally involving the spectator\u201d.
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THE EXHIBITION AT THE GALLERIE DELL’ACCADEMIA IN VENICE<\/h2>
\r\nThe body, therefore, leaves the perimeter of biology and reclaims its connection with everyday life, both individual and collective. Renaissance artists take up the challenge of a body that \u201cis everywhere\u201d, as curator Francesca Borgo points out in her essay in the catalogue. The body, she declares, is \u201cout in life, disciplined by manuals of behaviour and self-care, and inside images. Everyone has one, everyone draws it, and everyone ceaselessly wonders how best to depict it: because transforming the body into a figure remains, today as then, a risky business, an exercise that inevitably brings with it big questions about beauty \u2012 what it is, whether it is representable, whether it is the purpose of art or not\u201d.
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\r\nEveryday reality thus becomes the ground on which artists like D\u00fcrer choose to carry out such an \u201cexercise\u201d. \u201cIt is, however, above all from the body \u2012 the real body, of life, which is empirically observed and measured \u2012 that D\u00fcrer thinks he can derive the lost formula\u201d, Borgo further explains. \u201cThe beauty of the body\u201d, he writes, \u201cis to be sought in the people, in the crowd, in the multitude: \u00abI believe that the correct form and beauty are to be found in the totality of all people […]. He who is able to extract (heraus zihen) this essence I will follow more than he who wants to invent a new measure, of which men have never been a part\u00bb. And although he states that he does not claim that artists should spend their whole lives measuring, he seems to have done exactly that, and states several times that he has studied (and measured) at least two or three hundred people. The consequence of this anthropometric campaign seems to have been, inevitably, the realisation that nobody is perfect, and everybody has a different idea of perfection.
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\r\nBy strokes of the ruler and compass, the Vitruvian canon thus crumbles into the variety of types, into the irreducible difference of the human. In the so-called \u2018aesthetic excursus\u2019, a long theoretical text written between 1512 and 1515 and then added to the end of the third of the Four Books on Human Proportions<\/em>, D\u00fcrer reformulates the theory of proportions not as a canon, but as a method of investigation, useful for accounting for all imaginable variations of the body. Based on empirical data, the treatise offers artists a series of terms of difference (thin\/fat, soft\/robust, strong\/weak, black\/white) that serve to artificially replicate, in image, the variety that is proper to the body in life. Having abandoned the illusion of a unitary proportional canon, D\u00fcrer became aware of the fact that there is no absolute beauty, but multiple forms of relative beauty\u201d.
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THE CURATORS OF THE EXHIBITION IN VENICE<\/h2>
\r\nWhat emerges is thus \u201can aesthetics of difference that surprisingly brings D\u00fcrer and Leonardo closer together, committed, at a distance but in the same years, to redefining the role of the artist as one who embraces the multiplicity of forms of bodies. For both of them, the repetition of stereotyped figures, rigidly constructed and measured on the always equal univocity of the canon, is to be avoided. Variety is the artist\u2019s goal and prerogative. […] Convinced of the intrinsic unity of the organism, Leonardo does not seek absolute measurements, but internal correspondences between different parts of the body\u201d.
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\r\n\u201cAlmost immediately any trace of Vitruvius disappears\u201d, Borgo concludes, \u201covertaken by empirical evidence, as a few years later would also be the case for D\u00fcrer; he was not openly refuted, but simply put aside: and this was certainly no exception for Leonardo, who in various fields of knowledge thought of the ancient author as an adversary to be refuted\u201d.
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\r\nThe body is everywhere, it was said. But what relationship exists between studies on the anatomical representation of the human body and the birth of architectural drawing \u2012 a discipline deeply connected to being in the world? In his essay, curator Guido Beltramini wonders about this. Following in the footsteps of James Ackerman, he closes the circle of reasoning with these words: \u201c[…] it is evident that at the time of their codification, anatomical drawing and architectural drawing posed similar problems of analytical description of external morphology and the correspondence between interior and exterior. The research developed by Piero and Leonardo was made his own by Bramante, who also drew other elements from the latter for his own activity as an architect, such as the use of red stone as a more ductile medium than pen and ink for architectural design. From the \u2018workshop\u2019 of the St. Peter\u2019s building site set up by Bramante emerge crucial elements for the definition of a new system of representation. In particular, Antonio da Sangallo, one of the few who came from the practice of the building site rather than from a painter\u2019s workshop, and therefore accustomed to conceiving drawing as an instrument of construction control, systematically developed drawing according to the \u2018theorem of the three methods\u2019. It is no coincidence that it will be Palladio, who shares with Antonio the same training in construction, who will transfer to the field of publishing new modes of representation, which once again find their origin in the representation of the human body\u201d.
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\r\nIn light of the reflections proposed by the curators of the Venetian exhibition, the meaning of the accompanying title becomes even clearer: the \u201cmaking of the body\u201d is a process concerning the sphere of existence in its totality and complexity. A process, indeed, that still belongs to us.
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\r\nArianna Testino<\/strong>","protected":false},"featured_media":15087,"template":"","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categorie_magazine":[343],"class_list":["post-15108","magazine","type-magazine","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie_magazine-words-from-marte"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe body as measure and revolution: the curators of the exhibition at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia in Venice talk about it - Marsilio Arte<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Guido Beltramini, Francesca Borgo and Giulio Manieri Elia give shape to a reflection on the body that ranges from anatomy to desire\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The body as measure and revolution: the curators of the exhibition at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia in Venice talk about it\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Guido Beltramini, Francesca Borgo and Giulio Manieri Elia give shape to a reflection on the body that ranges from anatomy to desire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/en\/magazine\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Marsilio Arte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.marsilioarte.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Foto-di-Andrea-Avezzu_19.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1145\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"916\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MarsilioArte\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/magazine\\\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/magazine\\\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\\\/\",\"name\":\"The body as measure and revolution: the curators of the exhibition at the Gallerie dell\u2019Accademia in Venice talk about it - Marsilio Arte\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/magazine\\\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/magazine\\\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/Foto-di-Andrea-Avezzu_19.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-16T09:06:46+00:00\",\"description\":\"Guido Beltramini, Francesca Borgo and Giulio Manieri Elia give shape to a reflection on the body that ranges from anatomy to desire\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/magazine\\\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/magazine\\\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/en\\\/magazine\\\/body-exhibition-gallerie-accademia-venice\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/Foto-di-Andrea-Avezzu_19.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.marsilioarte.it\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/04\\\/Foto-di-Andrea-Avezzu_19.jpeg\",\"width\":1145,\"height\":916,\"caption\":\"Corpi moderni. 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