around 1475/80 -1546 · Piedmontese Renaissance, Sacro Monte and Leonardesque heritage

Populated frescoes, luminous altarpieces, fervent gestures and dialogue with sculpture make Gaudenzio Ferrari the great sacred narrator of resurgent Piedmont.

Gaudenzio Ferrari was born in Valduggia, near Varallo, around 1475 or 1480. Active between Piedmont and Lombardy, he developed a personal language through contact with the tradition of Bergognone, the masters of Milan and the disciples of Leonardo da Vinci, notably Bernardino Luini. His first documented works include the polyptych painted in 1508 -1509 for the brotherhood of Saint Anne of Vercelli. The two panels of the Annunciation already show his taste for continuous narration: the movement of the angel, the retreat of the Virgin, architecture and light rays unite two separate images. The heart of his career remains Varallo and the Sacro Monte. In the chapels dedicated to the life of Christ, Gaudenzio coordinates life-size painting, architecture and polychrome sculptures. The viewer no longer contemplates just a sacred episode: he enters a space inhabited by expressive crowds. The great Crucifixion of Chapel 38 combines fresco and modeling in an enveloping dramaturgy, one of the Renaissance peaks of northern Italy. In Vercelli, Novara and Saronno, his frescoes and altarpieces display light color, readable gestures, deeply human faces and sometimes concerts of angels of joyful invention. In Vercelli, Novara and Saronno, his frescoes and altarpieces display light color, legible gestures, deeply human faces and sometimes concerts of angels of joyful invention. In Vercelli, Novara and Saronno, his frescoes and altarpieces display light color, legible gestures, deeply human faces and sometimes concerts of angels of joyful invention. In Vercelli, Novara and Saronno, his frescoes and altarpieces display light color, legible gestures, deeply human faces and sometimes concerts of angels of joyful invention. In Vercelli, Novara and Saronno, his frescoes and altarpieces display light color, legible gestures, deeply human faces and sometimes concerts of angels of joyful invention. In Vercelli, Novara and Saronno, his frescoes and altarpieces display light color, legible gestures, deeply human faces and sometimes concerts of angels on the contrary, Christ transforms the group into a circle of pain, each gaze leading towards the central body. In recent years, based in Milan, Gaudenzio assimilated mannerism more while retaining his sense of popular presence. Died in 1546, he left a monumental work where painting, sculpture and space became the instruments of a collective experience of religious narrative. The selection "Gaudenzio Ferrari" notably compares The Annunciation: the angel Gabriel and The Annunciation: the Virgin Mary. His reading favors light.

Gaudenzio does not place the spectator before sacred history: through frescoes, sculpture and crowds, he introduces it to the heart of the event.