Sept 18th, Rome National Gallery of Modern Art

9/18     Wednesday

We’ve nearly overdosed on ancient ruins, so today we’ll see a newer site, the  National Gallery of Modern Art. The metro stop is near the Borgia Villa, so there are many tour buses around, but few are going to the art museum. It’s a fine exhibition building, set apart form the Borgia grounds with a grand stairway at the entrance. The interior court is an installation by a visiting artist, who has covered the floor with panels of shattered mirror, reflecting and distorting the ceiling and columns, like you’re looking though a pool of rippling waters. It’s quite a stunning effect.

The museum rooms are organized thematically, focusing on Italian artists who embody the themes presented. It’s an interesting way to place the works, although the descriptions aren’t as clear as you’d like in the translations. Obviously, Italian is an expressive and poetic language, and usually a literal translation comes across as a bit weird.

There are several works, drawings, paintings and sculptures by Arnoldo Pomodoro, the artist who created the modern sculpture that sits on the grounds of government office buildings in upstate NY. We don’t seem to hold him in quite the same esteem as the Italians do.

In the room showing the influences of Orientalism on 19^th Century artists, there’s an incredible full-sized statue of Cleopatra, lounging on a lionskin, contemplating a viper curled in a basket on her hip. The details of textures and features is fantastic: the lion’s claws, her braided hair, the metallic embroidery of her dress, the leather straps of her sandals, even her toenails, all exquisitely rendered in marble.

A second statue, in another area, almost set aside in a corner, holds my attention as well. I can tell from across the room that it’s the work of Ivan Meštrovic. The subject is completely radical, practically taboo: a nude, old woman. She stands simply, gnarled, heavy hands at her side. Her shoulders and chest are bony and sagging, her belly, soft and bulging. her sunken eyes are closed, her face composed, quite, resigned. The statue is startling realistic, but at the same time mythic; simple, but heroic. Meštrovic’s ability to make marble seem soft and as luminous as this old woman’s delicate skin is just incredible.

 1 Video Included

Rome National Gallery of Modern Art