EMERGING FROM DARKNESS: FAITH, EMOTION AND THE BODY IN THE BAROQUE

Saturday 9 December 2023 - Sunday 14 April 2024

Hamilton Gallery

Drawn from a partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria and loans from the National Gallery of Australia and private lenders across the country, Emerging From Darkness: Faith, Emotion and the Body in the Baroque brings together some of the most important European works in Australia for the first time.

This unprecedented exhibition showcases rare, historically important works by world-renowned baroque masters, promising to be one of the most important exhibitions ever held in regional Australia.

Emerging From Darkness heroes the dramatic stories of three female artists; Artemisia Gentileschi, Lavinia Fontana, and Sofonisba Anguissola, who cathartically reinterpret experiences of violence and turmoil, yet at the same time, represent voices of empowerment. Their works are showcased alongside major paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Valentin de Boulogne, Guercino and Bartolomeo Manfredi, among others.

The Baroque is the most passionate and emotive art movement in history. Visitors will experience works that changed the course of art in the 17th Century. An exhibition of this calibre and content can usually only be experienced in galleries and museums overseas. While some works are known, others have rarely been seen. All, however, are powerful, unapologetic, and undeniably memorable.

Emerging From Darkness is a unique cultural opportunity for audience members and features a range of associated events and experiences including exciting accommodation and dining packages, and bespoke products in the HG design store. There are free and ticketed opportunities for all ages.

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ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:

This exhibition brings together exceptional works from public and private collections in Australia, offering regional audiences a unique opportunity to gain insights into a radical transformation in art history.

During the late 16th Century, artists such as Annibale Carracci and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio transformed Italian art, rethinking all aspects of composition and colour, rejecting mannerist painting and emphasising drawing and painting from life. In a profound break from tradition, they painted directly from posed figures and used the shadows and light of chiaroscuro, invented by Leonardo da Vinci, to make figures stand out vividly whilst also being concealed.

This transformation took place against the backdrop of religious upheaval and thought-shifting scientific revelations. Painting started to gain mass appeal, with viewers of iconography no longer needing to be literate or to understand scripture to experience an intense emotional response to art.

Emerging From Darkness explores this fascinating period, bringing women artists to the fore as protagonists of their own stories.

For the first time in a major exhibition of 17th Century Italian works in Australia, Emerging From Darkness also examines art produced in India, Asia, and the Pacific, objects produced in a Christian context demonstrating European and Asian influences, and contemporary works by artists employing the Baroque style. It represents a rare opportunity to explore Italy, figurative art, and the body in one of Australia’s few European masters researched exhibitions.

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Exhibition organised by Hamilton Gallery in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria.

This project is proudly supported by the Victorian State Government through Visit Victoria and the Regional Events Fund.

Image: Artemisia Gentileschi, Lucretia c.1630-35, oil on canvas. Private Collection.