The "Temptations, Torments, Trials and Tribulations" of Cecily Brown

Until February 4, 2024, in the rooms on the ground floor of the Museo Novecento and in Palazzo Vecchio it will be possible to admire over 30 works by one of the most important artists of contemporary art, Cecily Brown.
The exhibition entitled “Temptations, Torments, Trials and Tribulations” displays paintings, drawings and prints inspired by the Temptations of Saint Anthony, a subject that great artists including Michelangelo Buonarroti, Hieronimus Bosch, Paul Cézanne and Odillon Redon, had already represented in past.
A version of the Temptations of Saint Anthony deriving from an engraving by Martin Schongauer, created on wood in the second half of the 16th century, is exhibited in the chapel of the Museo Novecento. This is a truly unmissable opportunity to observe the exceptional Flemish school painting that inspired Cecily Brown, depicting the saint tormented by demons.
A single canvas, put into dialogue with the location of excellence, is exhibited in the Museum of Palazzo Vecchio, inside Bianca Cappello's dressing room, which housed collections and valuable objects belonging to the noblewoman.

The works on display, mostly unpublished, form an extremely engaging and expressive itinerary, which, as the title indicates, evokes the torments of the human soul.
Cecily Brown combines figuration and abstraction in a very distinctive way. Her depiction of the Temptations of Saint Anthony is a vortex of colors and shapes that presents itself to us as ordered chaos. From agglomerations of color and apparently random brushstrokes, emerge shapes, bodies and animals and a harmonious composition with an absolutely intentional structure.