In Schifanoia two days to celebrate Guercino

“With tears of jubilation in my eyes” is the conference that intends to celebrate Guercino, the genius of Emilian painting. It will be held on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 April in the new conference space of the Schifanoia museum and will be an opportunity to explore the close relationship between the painter from Cento and the city of Este which still preserves some of his masterpieces today.

The meeting is organized by the Art Museums service of the Municipality and the Ferrara Arte foundation, in collaboration with the Cultural Heritage departments of the University of Bologna – Ravenna Campus and the technical organizational office of the archdiocese of Ferrara – Comacchio.

Among the greatest exponents of seventeenth-century painting, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri known as Guercino (1591-1666) had, during his long career, a privileged relationship with Ferrara, from his first youthful stay in 1619 when, as Girolamo Baruffaldi recalls, he admired hours “with tears of jubilation in his eyes” the paintings of Carlo Bononi in Santa Maria in Vado, until the creation, in his mature years, of altarpieces which exerted an important influence on the city’s artistic panorama.

The Conference intends to address various aspects of the Centese painter’s activity in Ferrara, the fundamental contribution of his collaborators, especially the trusted Gennari, as well as his relationships with local painters and clients.

The program of interventions, spread over two days and open free of charge to all interested parties, includes the contribution of prestigious scholars and researchers who will delve into the critical success of the artist and his creations, his entrepreneurial ability and the impact on the local art of its figurative solutions.

Finally, a session of the conference will be dedicated to the results of the restoration intervention and to the technical diagnostic investigations conducted on Saint Francis receiving the stigmata, a work created by the painter in 1632 for the church of the Sacred Stigmata in Ferrara, a recent recovery which has brought new light to one of the most prestigious Ferrara works of the seventeenth century.

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