Il ritratto interiore. Da Lotto a Pirandello

The great theme of the portrait as the image of identity, of the interior soul, is explored here in the exhibition in Aosta and catalogue through a selection of one hundred and sixty works from the first 'psychological' portraits of the sixteenth century, in which the individual looks out to the world, up to the twentieth century, the century of Freud, in which the projection of nightmares and dreams and the interpretation of anxieties and fears expresses the human condition. The exhibition includes the works of ancient masters such as Lorenzo Lotto, Titian, Bartolomeo Passerotti, El Greco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Guercino, Ferdinand Voet, Fra' Galgario, Giacomo Ceruti and Vincenzo Vela, and artists of the twentieth century and contemporary artists, including Adolfo Wildt, Giorgio De Chirico, Felice Casorati, Oscar Ghiglia, Fausto Pirandello, Antonio Ligabue, Andy Warhol, Arturo Nathan, Enrico Colombotto Rosso, Gianfranco Ferroni, Tullio Pericoli, Maurizio Bottoni, Alessandro Kokocinski, and Aron Demetz.
"To portray", (the Italian is 'ritrarre', from the Latin re-trahere) means to "bring out", to extract with colours, marble and other materials, the effigy, or the simulacrum, of an individual. Art has the power to "simulate", that is, to reproduce and keep alive not only the form but also the interior uniqueness of the depicted subject, enabling his or her character and soul to come to light. In addition, physical features and external elements are also revealed, which may indicate social standing.
The "interior portrait" radiates due to the skills of the artist in making the subject display - above all through his or her expression - anxieties, quirks, gestures of expectation, hesitations, and expressions of anguish. The image thus becomes so "verisimilar" that it takes the life of living people; it has the capacity to stir emotions and lasts longer than reality.
This publication, which is the catalogue to the exhibition conceived and curated by Vittorio Sgarbi at the Regional Archaeological Museum in Aosta, proposes an ideal gallery - dense with characters and above all expressions - of diverse portraits from different eras, depicted naturally or in a celebratory or allegorical pose, portraits that are evocative, absorbing, tender, numbing, or heartening, expressions that are full of fear. In all of them nonetheless, the viewer sees not characters but humans, existing and fragile with their weaknesses. Their voices are distinctive as they question life or prepare for death. The exhibition contains a series of full-length figures, half-length portraits, and contorted or composed bodies, but above all there are faces, the part that immediately attracts, in the portrait as in life, the viewer's curiosity and desire to explore and understand. In the face, the veil of the soul, mask and refuge, the expression can be found which opens the 'door to the heart' and allows for passage from the external nature of experience to the intimacy of being.
The expression can "reveal", or seal, forever.