Site 3 Santa Maria degli Angeli and the Baths of Diocletian
Michelangelo’s last project was the design for Santa Maria degli Angeli, a church built into the ruins of Baths of Diocletian. The church itself occupies only a small portion of the enormous Baths. Over time much of the simple white interior space Michelangelo designed has been buried under Baroque decoration. Is it possible to know where the church ends and the Baths begin? Over many years and many visits, Santa Maria degli Angeli remains a startling confusion, a wash of other voices that push against time. How can I know where to stand - what direction to look? Is it possible to know where one ends and the other begins? Information panels in the Sacristia explain the history of the Baths after the fall of Rome and the construction of Michelangelo’s church in its ruins. No words can take the place of what is almost there, yet I can recognise the structure of the Baths in the undecorated vaulted ceiling. Although the clarity of his vision has been almost erased, the space of the Baths that Michelangelo wanted to preserve is still there to be felt. As I walk outside along the exterior walls of the church, I can see that they are the interior walls of the Baths. The inclusion of other voices still echoes in this space, here Michelangelo brought Diocletian into his world. Rome echoes within the structure of the works I make. Fragments pieced together. A thing made almost whole. £
©Jeff Bondono.com
Janice Gurney: information panel in the Sacristia of the church
from the top: Entrance to Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome Drawing for Michelangelo’s original doors Ceiling in Santa Maria degli Angeli, Rome
Janice Gurney: information panel in the Sacristia of the church
JANICE GURNEY is a Canadian contemporary artist whose work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Winnipeg Art Gallery and Museum London. 1977: Janice moved from Winnipeg to Toronto. 1992: Sum Over Histories , a ten-year survey exhibition of her work, organised by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, travelled to five locations across Canada.
2006—now: her work with The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius has been seen in London, Toronto and St. Catharines, Ontario. 2022: Community of Images: Strategies of Appropriation in Canadian Art, 1977-1990 , co-edited with Julian Jason Haladyn was published by YYZBOOKS. https://yyzbooks.com/collections/books https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janice _ Gurney
25 on site review 46 :: travel
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