“NERO Perugino Burri” opens a dialogue between the two artists on the use of black

On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of Pietro Vannucci, known as the Perugino, Perugia Foundation in collaboration with Burri Foundation has organized the exhibition “NERO Perugino Burri” (“Black Perugino Burri”) open until October 2 2023 at Palazzo Baldeschi, in Perugia.

Curated by the art historian Vittoria Garibaldi and the President of Fondazione Burri Bruno Corà, the exhibition consists of about twenty works from important museums, connecting the works of the two great Umbrian artists, only apparently distant, through the common denominator of black, a difficult color, often avoided by artists, but widely used by both.

The idea of the exhibition was born around the most precious work of the Perugia Foundation, the “Madonna and Child and two cherubim”, which portrays Virgin and Child standing out on a completely black background, allowing the complexions and colors of the garments to stand out in a completely innovative way for the time.

The work dates back to the richest years of the master’s career, when, active in Florence, he knows and absorbs Flemish painting and the light of Leonardo, but he is also involved in the atmosphere of Venice where he travels several times. Hence the desire to investigate the use of the black background in small-format works dated between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, where there is no ideal landscape or perspective architecture, but only the deep black, on which stand out the protagonists of the scene, in a way never before seen.

Similarly, in the works of Alberto Burri – a great admirer and connoisseur of Italian Renaissance art – we find the same interest in black, not intended as a lack of color, but as a darkness that allows light to emerge.