press kit
Quilling
devotional creations from cloistered orders
Press release
Introduction by Ginevra Elkann
A conversation with an enlightened collector
A conversation with Nan Goldin: a luminous soul
Objects of devotion, works of art
and the influence of Rome
Glossary of terms
Book dossier
Quilling
devotional creations from cloistered orders
press release
Quilling
devotional creations from cloistered orders
5 April – 2 September 2012
Curated by Elena Geuna
This new exhibition continues the series of temporary shows at the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli devoted to the theme of collecting, presenting a selection of the most significant examples of paper scrollwork or
quilling from private collections.
The show gathers together around 200 incredibly intricate compositions for the first time, including works
from the private collection of the American photographer Nan Goldin, who presents twelve photographs taken
especially for the event.
Made between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries for use in homes and convents, quilling reliquaries
were traditionally created by cloistered nuns. The reliquaries were embellished with ornate, minutely detailed
compositions in paper and other materials, such as wax, ivory, glass and crystals, designed to adorn the relics
within.
Inspired by the goldsmithing technique of filigree, paper scrollwork was “constructed” by rolling up thin strips
of gold or coloured paper to form mostly floral motifs, which were then adorned with beads, shells, coral, tiny
parchments, scraps of fabric, shards of glass and fragments of bone attributed to the saints. These richly ornate
decorations were highly symbolic, evoking images of fertility and life, while the imagery and layout bore precise theological and hagiographic references.
Scrollwork developed during the seventeenth century in almost all Catholic countries - France, Italy, Spain
and Austria in particular - and as the worship of saints and relics spread, it also became popular in domestic
settings. These religious creations, expertly crafted by nuns, were also given to convent benefactors or offered
to adorn chapels and altars.
Quilling reflected the spiritual climate of the Catholic Church following the Council of Trent, channelling the
Baroque tastes of that period and providing a historical record of a form of craftsmanship that was little known
but widespread among the various female religious orders. The distinctive features of these artefacts – the timeconsuming, labour-intensive craftsmanship involved, the idea of devotion to work as an act of prayer and the
use of simple, “poor” materials – fittingly encapsulate the rules of these orders. Aesthetically speaking, the end
result is comparable to the artistic value of these small masterpieces.
The Turin exhibition presents reliquaries of different kinds and from different periods, many of which come
from France: from the Agnus Dei sacramentals, made by melting consecrated paschal candles, to the altar-shaped reliquaries of the late eighteenth century; from colourful festive paper garlands to medallions made of
“pasta di tutti i santi”, a mixture of cardboard and earth from the catacombs where martyrs were believed to be
buried. The exhibition also stages a selection of miniature nineteenth century reconstructions of nuns’ cells,
showing nuns going about their daily manual duties in the convent.
The exhibition also boasts a full colour catalogue (Corraini Edizioni), in Italian and English, featuring an essay
by Bernard Berthod, Consultor to the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, and interviews by Elena Geuna with anonymous collectors and among them Nan Goldin.
Press Office Silvia Macchetto | T +39 340 6350241 | [email protected]
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Catalogue Corraini Edizioni
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Quilling
devotional creations from cloistered orders
TEXTS
Quilling
devotional creations from cloistered orders
Introduction
There are some collections that provoke a sense of marvel in those who see them for the first
time similar to that experienced when we were children and discovered astounding toys that
took our breath away as we admired them, before even we began to play with them. The impact
with one of the collections displayed in this exhibition has been one of an unexpected and moving encounter with objects never seen before; objects of precious appearance, made by hands
trained to work precious metals and embroidery. On speaking with the collector and with the
curator, we discovered that what seem to be jewels and works by talented goldsmiths are actually nothing more than little strips of paper, coloured and rolled by the nimble hands of cloistered
nuns; even more astounding! The “paperoles” displayed in the Gallery may well be made of poor
materials, but they are real works of art for all that, bearing with them the history of convents
and of the cults of saints and reliquaries, telling the history of the Church and of the 18th and
19th-century arts in Italy, France and Germany. The identity and history of the authors of these
works of art in miniature are recounted in the exhibition by some little models of cells, in which
lived the cloistered nuns who dedicated themselves to these masterly manual tasks.
Together with the curator, Elena Geuna, we also wanted to bring a contemporary element to
the Gallery that could hold a dialogue with these refined objects of prayer. The poetic, luminous
gaze of Nan Goldin has fixed on these Piedmontese collections, and she has immortalised them
in some significant images displayed in the exhibition and published in this volume. Nan Goldin
has also shown great generosity in loaning some of the “paperoles” from her own private collection and permitting them to be displayed here, alongside the Piedmontese collections.
Antique art, reliquaries, Piedmontese collections and foreign collections, a contemporary interpretation and photographs combine to form an exhibition which we believe offers a new, intimate and special way of looking at the art associated with the cult for relics.
ginevra elkann
Presidente
Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli
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From picture-cards to paperoles, via Fontana and Arte Povera.
A conversation with an enlightened collector
elena geuna: I would be interested to learn when you first developed a passion for collecting.
Collector: One starts to collect from birth. As soon as I was born, I had a mania for quantifying, for possessing many things of all sorts. As a child, for example, there had to be plenty of
food or I would start to cry even before starting to eat. It’s as though I were born with a desire
to have the most in everything I did. It’s hard to understand, but that’s how it was. Then as soon
as I could speak and at the same time developed a capacity to understand I had something less
earthly than food, I began to collect picture-cards: thousands of cards, postcards, always things
of paper. To the point that my mother in despair put them in the attic because the house had
filled with objects of this sort, with boxes full of picture-cards, postcards, stickers… At a certain
point, there was a risk the ceiling could cave in and so she began to throw all my stuff away. But
there was such a large quantity because only that calmed me, only the amount made me happy.
This was one of the first things I collected. And then I loved plants and flowers a lot; I had a wonderful large terrace and with my pocket money I bought 150 vases of various flowers, until I got
to the point that there too, the terrace was on the point of collapsing. When I left my home town,
I began to collect slightly more important objects; I began to earn Lire 30,000 a month from the
various tailors and fashion houses where I worked. I began collecting drawings of various kinds,
including some by Erté, by Marcello Dudovich and René Gruau. I had a mania for these objects,
and collected thousands of them, which I then distributed around the world, giving some as gifts
to friends or selling them to buy other objects.
EG: Why did you then choose to focus your attention on contemporary art?
C: After having collected so many figurative images, so many simple, normal, understandable
“objects”, I developed an interest in more difficult works. At the start of the 1950s, there was informal art and I began to buy pictures from informal artists who were not too expensive but who
had already shown their potential and energy. Then I left Milan and moved to Turin, and this
totally changed my taste. Turin in the 1960s was in my opinion the town in Italy that gave one
the greatest possibility of understanding that Italian contemporary art was the most important,
most innovative and most creative in the world.
EG: Could you describe the artistic life of the 1960s and 1970s you lived through and the cultural
climate Turin had then?
C: In the 1960s, there wasn’t that much money around. In my case, I had an excellent salary and
the only thing that interested me apart from my work was frequenting art galleries – at the time,
these were few and very important – like Sperone, Christian Stein, Galleria Notizie and Galleria
Martano. I would visit the exhibitions and above all admire the works that were being created in
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those years: I was struck in particular by the art of Fontana, of Burri and Manzoni. I bought a few
works on instalments; at the time I couldn’t afford to buy a picture in one go, even if it was cheap:
a Fontana cost almost nothing, a Manzoni not much, a Castellani or a Burri not very much, and
so I bought some of their works. Then suddenly I met Christian Stein, who became a dear friend;
every day around midday I would go to eat a salad with her and with many other artists I didn’t
know very well. Mme. Stein introduced them to me and that’s how I discovered I was having
lunch with the great names of Arte Povera.
EG: So it was Christian Stein who most stimulated your interest.
C: Yes, her above all. She was an exceptional woman, with great taste, and she understood my
sensitivity; a marvellous person, with great culture and very generous too, even though she was
sometimes a bit stingy when it came to the salad… This was a typical aspect of hers, it was even
quite pleasant. I met all the artists of Arte Povera: Paolini, Penone, Zorio, Fabro who would come
from Milan, Anselmo, whom we saw little because he was a bit of a “bear”, and sometimes Pistoletto, Merz and Kounellis.
EG: Are these the artists who most influenced your choices in that period?
C: Yes, them above all, because I liked their work at that time; I didn’t like anyone else apart from
Fontana, Burri and Manzoni. I had bought works by other artists, but I didn’t like these any more
after having got to know, see and love Arte Povera. So I sold some works through the Italian auction houses; at the time, one didn’t go to Christie’s or Sotheby’s, but rather to Finarte in Milan,
which was the point of reference for Italian collectors in the 1960s and 1970s.
EG: We’ve spoken about Arte Povera and about Lucio Fontana. You’ve often told me about your
meetings with Fausto Melotti.
C: Melotti was a great surprise for me. In the 1960s, I met a tailor from Milan who collected works
by Melotti because he used to make clothes for his wife, and since in the 1960s he was poor,
Melotti paid for these clothes in art. So this tailor had several Melotti works in his house. As soon
as I saw them, I was surprised, pleasantly moved by these colourful “things” that moved, that
danced and I asked who they were by. He said: “Melotti, a friend of mine”, and gave me his address, so I went to see the artist. After that, I would visit him monthly, or sometimes every week;
I would go to the studio to see his work. He used to make brass sculptures and would say to me:
“The small ones are by me. But not the big ones: they’re done to my design”. I bought several little
sculptures from him, well lots, actually, as well as tiles and plaster works… I would say: “Professore, sell me one. With my salary, I can afford to buy one a month.” I always bought the plaster
works at Lire 250,000 each, and I had 30 or so in my house, plus 30 sculptures, but unfortunately
I subsequently sold them.
EG: I seem to remember that you still have some plaster works by Melotti, like the little theatre
you lent me for the exhibition in New York.
C: Yes, I still have many in my collection. I adored Melotti a lot; he was so brilliant that he never
came to blows with Arte Povera. Indeed, he anticipated it. If you look at the fabrics he used, the
paper, the materials… they were very simple and very poor. I think that Melotti is very close to
the artists of Arte Povera. I loved his work and followed him until his death in 1986. He was a
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great discovery for me, and this great and brilliant artist was a close friend of mine.
EG: Thinking about the home in which you lived then…
C: It was a small home, a 70-square-metre attic on the top floor. There wasn’t even room to bang in a
nail on the wall, so covered were they with works by Boetti, Kounellis, everyone; even minor artists
like Chiari, or other less important ones. There were Turinese artists too, like Gallina – very sensitive artists – whom I liked a great deal, even though most of them were Arte Povera artists. At the
end of the 1970s, I changed home because after collecting hundreds of works, I didn’t know where
to put them any more. They were everywhere: under the bed, in my wardrobe, in the lavatory, in
the kitchen; there really wasn’t any more room! And they were such strange works! For instance,
Boetti used to make little red sideboards with a line of light; I had to tell my mother it was just a
sideboard for the kitchen or she would have spurned me for ever! In 1960, buying some works of
art was pure folly. But they were so beautiful, so appealing, so innovative! Some Arte Povera artists
were truly innovative, 50 years ahead of the pack. So I had to change home and went to live in a
house in the centre of town, in a historic building, so I could put in all my works in a more rational
and precise way.
EG: I remember the first time I visited your house in the centre, about 20 years ago; the walls
were completely covered from floor to ceiling with works of art…
C: Yes, a lot of paintings were just laid against the wall; a picture need not be hung: leaning it
means giving it a physiognomy, and it’s very important for giving it a third dimension. I didn’t
put a picture on the wall only for others; I did it for myself. Even when a picture was on the bed,
or laid on the floor, it would give me energy, joy.
EG: I have noted how some collectors and contemporary artists turn to religious art, perhaps impelled by an inner striving or an inspiration. How did you make the journey from contemporary
art to religious art?
C: It happened many years ago, when at the end of the 1980s I began to feel the need to make
a change from all these overly white, overly clean albeit beautiful, splendid but mainly conceptual paintings. I needed something more concrete, or more spiritual, that could give me
a different, new, special emotion. Something perhaps closer to, let’s say, my spiritual rather than material sensitivity. That’s how I began frequenting the flea markets. This was a significant step, because there’s quite a difference between an important international gallery
and a flea market… but at bottom it’s the same thing. I began by buying plaster Madonnas;
they cost very little, ten, five or twenty thousand lire, sometimes less, according to their state
of conservation. Often, these objects were on a mirror, or crystal, glass, wood or plaster and
were beautiful. These little objects give you the same joy as a Fontana; in reality there’s very
little difference. What matters is the emotion you feel and that doesn’t depend on the financial value. In collecting art, the joy comes from the possibility of possessing, because you have
the money; you buy these objects instead because you have sought them out and found them.
They convey a sense of happiness and of serenity. These are two similar ways of collecting; not
for others, maybe, but for me they are, for what they give me when I buy them. The emotion of
the discovery in the first instance, and then of possession. The material value has no importance;
perhaps that’s important for others. It’s very hard to detach oneself from the material world, especially at the moment, even though I believe this is necessary. If the world doesn’t detach itself
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from materialism, it can have no future. The world should draw closer to spirituality in order to
be able to start over, to create a new world.
EG: I’d like to know how you decided to surround yourself with different types of Madonnas.
C: I chose the Madonnas because they were the easiest to find and cost little; not only in plaster but also prints, oils, small antiques, 18th-century Madonnas, Madonnas of all sorts. I
would buy them at auctions too. I love the Madonna and buying these works was something
that gave me joy and serenity. It conveyed a feeling to me that other objects did not give me.
Now I have thousands of them in boxes heaped up in and above the cellar. I’ve even had intermediate floors put in…
EG: There has been a sort of “evolution” in your collection of religious objects, as from the Madonnas you moved on to the paperoles.
C: After the Madonnas, it was logical that I should move on to more important objects.
It’s always like this: collecting is a calvary; you always start with little, then you research, study,
make mistakes. Many times, you have regrets in having thrown away some money; perhaps it
would be better to buy by concentrating on quality rather than quantity. On my travels, especially for work, in Paris and London, I have found very important examples, especially in Paris,
of paperoles. Paperoles is the name given to those reliquaries “à la française” made by cloistered
nuns who from the 17th century onwards created these beautiful paper objects and reliquaries in
honour of the Madonna, of Saints and of Jesus. At the time, those were the most beautiful things
I was seeing.
EG: I’ve heard you say many times that paperoles aren’t for sale.
C: The paperoles shouldn’t be sold; it would be an offence to them and to the Madonna, because they are religious objects. They can be given, and indeed, should always be given as a gift.
Of course, when I buy them in the flea markets, I can’t expect the sellers to give them to me free,
but since I can afford it, I shall be giving my paperoles away. Not that I want everyone to come
here right now and ask me for a free paperole! [laughs]
EG: Turning to the works on show in the Pinacoteca, what was the first paperole you remember
buying?
C: That’s a very hard question, because I’ve bought so many! When I collect something, either I
buy them in large numbers or not at all. The first was a very cheap paperole that I bought one Sunday morning in a market near Turin. It was without a frame, without glass, dumped there, full
of dust and creepy-crawlies, almost completely destroyed. I bought it, took it home and restored
it completely. I saw that it changed – perhaps in my eyes only – because I put so much love into
it that it became a truly marvellous object. And then I said: “There, these are the objects I like”.
And I began to collect paperoles.
EG: Is there anyone you turned to most frequently in your search?
C: The meeting with Lalla Darò was very important. She’s an exceptional woman, full of
strength and energy. She had a little shop in the centre of Turin, full of strange, special things.
In the early days when I knew her, in the 1990s I think, I saw a wonderful exhibition she
put on with a few hundred paperoles; Rai Tre TV turned up to film it too. I bought some ob-
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jects there, among the most beautiful in my collection. The exhibition struck me a great deal.
I would have bought everything off her, but I couldn’t afford to, and besides, she wouldn’t have
sold me the whole exhibition anyway. We argued too, because I wanted some works and she
wouldn’t give me them, and kept them for herself. I bought some paperoles from her and I’m
very pleased today that I did so.
EG: From images of the Madonna to the boxes containing the Christ Child and from the paperoles
to the reliquaries with the Sacred Heart; what draws you to these creative devotional objects
when you choose them?
C: It’s very hard to say because it has become a mania now, like a drug, possessing everything
concerning this religious genre. The waxworks are very important; they give you a unique emotion, as they seem so alive, full of appeal and beauty. I used to buy a lot of works depicting Jesus:
Jesus as Infant, Crucifixions in wax or in other materials, but wax in particular.
EG: So the works you collect are “part” of your life…
C: They are indeed part of my life, my world, and since I am alone, I have nothing else, except the
odd cat and dog. These small objects convey serenity and joy to me; I like them a great deal. They
are a form of expression I need in life. I can do without food for a paperole; I could sacrifice a lot of
things, perhaps even a journey or a holiday as long as I could have these paperoles I like so much.
Besides, one can’t have everything.
EG: What are the works in the exhibition to which you feel especially attached?
C: Two very fine 17th-century ovals in wood that I bought at the end of the 1980s. I’m struck by their
beauty, their perspective. They show the Annunciation and Saint Francis. When I look at them,
my mind is enlightened; it’s as though I were entering another world, a world all mine. There are
other very beautiful objects too, those I call “sculptures” because they’re three-dimensional, like
the Christ Child in a cot full of paperoles, or the Christ Child in wax with curly hair, placed beneath
a glass bell and surrounded by flowers. These are works that convey an immense gratification.
EG: You mention the 17th-century pair with the Annunciation and Saint Francis. Your collection
has plenty of “pairs” of paperoles, which is something quite rare.
C: I like the idea of a pair because in the 18th and 19th century in general this is how these works
were bought. In olden times, the pair was always preferred to a single object, as can be seen with
candelabras, for instance, which always come in pairs. Today, instead, the principal value lies in
the uniqueness of a single object. In the 18th and 19th century, the fact that it was a pair completed
an object, giving it greater importance and making it far more valuable.
EG: And indeed the exhibition presents pairs of prelates, of crucifixes, of paperoles, of waxworks,
so you have deliberately sought out pairs of works.
C: Yes, you can’t find pairs in a flea market, you have to look carefully for them, because it means
that the two pieces have been together for centuries and centuries. This is the essence of the search.
EG: We’ve spent a week in the company of Nan Goldin, while she was photographing your collection. How did you live this experience?
C: Marvellously. Nan Goldin is a marvellous woman. I expected her to be rather “madder”
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but she instead proved to be a person with great culture and great sensitivity. I liked her a
great deal and hope that she liked me a little too, and my things, my house, what I was able
to give her, namely the possibility of photographing objects that she herself likes so much.
I was very happy with this encounter and I’d like to repeat the experience, although I fear the
pleasure of watching an artist of this level photographing my paperoles with such passion,
with such childlike joy, with the enthusiasm of a child in the surprise and love she showed
photographing the works will remain a unique experience. Nan Goldin is truly a great artist.
EG: I heard you say several times that the paperoles and religious works in your collection enrich your life. I would like to linger over this spiritual aspect.
C: When you are young, spirituality is thrust aside a little; one has other interests, other things
one is curious about. But when you’re a little older you feel the need for it. The great works of
contemporary art, like those by Fontana, are spiritual in many expressions, but this aspect is
not so obvious as in a religious object. The religious object truly expresses my new spirituality,
the need to draw closer to God, to the Madonna, to something than can have far stronger and
far truer values for a man who, like me, has always suffered in life. It is the total striving in my
life to compensate for solitude; it is the only thing that gives me joy and serenity. When I go to
church, when I look around and pray before my paperoles, I am a man who is well physically,
in mind and in heart. This is my great joy which I have discovered in recent years. Today, when
I see children I am very worried as I consider their future. If they succeed in getting past this
moment, they will have a different future, full of joy; another future.
EG: We will need to “re-learn” how to live.
C: That’s it exactly: start again to learn to live. We’ll need to learn to live without all of today’s
needs that in reality don’t exist: we have so many useless needs because we have wrong habits;
once upon a time, one got by with little or nothing.
EG: Talking about getting by with little… the exhibition also displays some examples of nuns’
cells.
C: They have an expression, a simplicity, a rigour, a spirituality, a beauty, a marvellous harmony.
EG: You can really understand the rule they lived by: ora et labora.
C: You can also understand that it’s a splendid place for thinking, for reflecting and drawing ever
closer to God and the Madonna. The cell is so compact, so simple, so beautiful, without wealth
but fall of appeal, of religiosity, of spirituality; it’s a marvellous setting. Full of energy.
EG: And even more extraordinary is the cell with glass in place of the roof to let the light in.
C: And the sky, above all the sky.
turin, 23rd january 2012
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A conversation with Nan Goldin: a luminous soul
elena geuna: I’ve seen your show in New York, Scopophilia and I very much liked it. It seems
to me that looking at your work, over the years and now, your photography has become more
contemplative.
Nan Goldin: Yes, that is true. I think that it started in the late 1980s, but it became more present
in the work, I would say, in the late 1990s. I started shooting landscapes a lot, and those for me
were… like trying to break the glass between myself and the natural world. In 1989 I stopped
doing drugs, and when I got over detox I discovered daylight. I didn’t even know about natural
light…
EG: The sun was shining…
NG: It was more than that: I thought light was either on or off; the sun was either on or off. I
didn’t know how much it changed during the day. I didn’t know that light changes the colour of
things. So for me that was a huge epiphany, and I became fascinated with light and what light
does to colour…
EG: And its effects…
NG: Yes. First I shot myself everyday, experiencing the light, and trying to retrieve the self I
didn’t know without drugs. Then back to NY where I went back to photographing my friends,
drag queens, parties, all of that and most important the effect of AIDS on my friends, my community. And meanwhile, ever since the 1970s, I was also photographing landscapes, but nobody
knew it. And since the 1970s, I was photographing in cemeteries, in every city and every country
I went to. I didn’t really show that work, though. The landscapes first appeared in the big Phaidon
book of 2003, The Devil’s Playground. That’s the first time they appeared, but there was only a
small number of them.
EG: How was your experience at the Louvre, wandering around the museum without any other
visitors on a day when it’s closed?
NG: One of the very best times of my life. That’s why the title of the exhibition is Scopophilia.
The photographer Peter Hujar – a great photographer who passed away – taught me that scopophilia means “absolute pleasure in looking”. There’s nothing sexual about it; it’s not a perversion, it’s just intense fulfilment from looking. And that’s what I had. It was like the Stendhal
syndrome for me in the Louvre.
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EG: Looking at your photographs, they seem to be talking about reality in an emotional language.
NG: Exactly, well said. I perceive reality on an emotional basis. I’m not very attuned to the
factual aspect of reality. I live on an emotional level.
EG: I am also interested in understanding the relationship between memory and your images.
NG: The whole beginning of my work was based on never wanting to forget anybody, and
I thought that if I photographed a person enough, I would never lose him or her. After my
best friends died of AIDS, I realised that photography didn’t do that. It did not succeed in
doing what I thought it would do. So that was a huge disappointment to me, a blow in relation to photography and what I thought it could do. It does preserve memory. However, because
I photograph whole histories of people’s lives, it does bring back a lot of memory, but it doesn’t
keep the person there.
EG: Collective memories, common archetypes, stories, lives that most of us can identify with
while looking at your photographs. Is that an idea you consider before taking a picture?
That you would like the audience to identify with your images?
NG: I never think about the audience when I take a picture. When I take a picture, it’s for the
person I’m photographing and for myself. It’s about that relationship: I try to show the people I
photograph the pictures I take of them, and generally before anyone else sees them. For me, it’s
still a very private thing, part of a personal relationship. I never think of an outside audience.
Even when I show my work; my work is for me and my friends. But as I travel more and more,
and meet more and more people… I don’t know. It’s certainly changed in scope, and I’ve met
people from my own tribe – who saw my pictures and deeply identified with them, and then I
recognise them as members of my tribe. But when I prepare a slideshow, it never occurs to me
who is going to see it, except for my friends.
EG: In some of your photographs, one can perceive an interest in religious iconography, and
perhaps something of your personal life experience.
NG: I started my first collection of Catholic iconography in about 1976. My first tattoo is of the
thing I first collected which is Bleeding Hearts. I collected the Bleeding Heart for years and
years. For me, it had nothing to do with Catholicism per se; it had to do with the notion of broken romance, or of the tough and the tender juxtaposed. I don’t know why I’m so attracted to
them but that became my focal image. Actually, I was brought up in a kind of non-religious
atheist-Jewish family; very Jewish in identity but atheist. The first spiritual experiences that
I had were watching the sunset and when I first saw and heard imagery from Catholicism when
I was about five. I became fascinated by the art and the music. Because in reformed Judaism,
there’s not a lot of great art and great music any more. In America, anyway. So, at about five,
I wanted to be Catholic, I was and remain, obsessed with all that imagery, but it’s now divorced from the idea of organised religion. Which is for me a great problem in the world.
And it’s probably going to destroy the world.
EG: Some of your religious subjects, like Fatima candles, seem to reveal a social aspect.
NG: Well, I’m fascinated by the notion that people believe en masse, that a group of people
can come together in a kind of ecstasy of belief to the point that they believe that they can be
cured. I love that; I think it’s wonderful. That as opposed to organised religion which I don’t
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think is wonderful. But I find that very beautiful and moving. I have a lot of superstitions:
I light candles for all my friends with Aids and I used to think that I could keep them alive if I
lit enough candles! But it didn’t work. But I still light candles in churches. I’m very superstitious
and very much interested in symbolic synchronicity, prescient memory – I have a lot of that in
my own head, where people say “Oh my God, you must be a witch”…
EG: A sort of visionary, maybe…?
NG: Maybe. There’s a religion called Wicca which is related to women and white witchcraft, although I don’t think they use that word. They live in the Forest of Dean in England. There’s a
female community with a religion based around nature. I think this is the only religion that
I could see myself being part of. I don’t need to be part of it to feel those things. It’s very strong.
Serene, but very strong. It’s about the power of women and about the power of nature. Nature
is not peaceful at all. Nature is everything, from violent to… I watch the sky every day; that’s
very important to me. It’s helped me enormously and I learned at an early age that we should
look at the sky every day. And sunsets; my sister used to take me to see sunsets, so they’re really
important to me. As a memory of my sister also. I’ve been photographing these things all along,
but it’s just that I felt rather humble about showing them in view of the so-called great landscape
photography that’s been done. And when I showed them to the first person in maybe 1990, he
said “You look like you’re from another planet”. And I liked that a lot. Because it’s like a child; I
lived in the dark for 20 years. So for me discovering all this was like…
EG: Being born again…
NG: Well, not being born again but reborn into something I didn’t know.
EG: I have seen your wonderful installation at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. It was the first
time I saw your work in that context. Was it inspired by the location?
NG: Yes, the enormous sense of space there is very rare. And of course its religious history.
The Fatima candles was a trip I took with Guido and Caterina [Costa] and has always been a
metaphor for AIDS for me, very personal, not the place millions of people visit. The pictures
I showed were Guido on the dock, in Venice… The Fatima candles were the right pictures for that
place. And I wanted pictures that could be enormous, to create a kind of space you could enter.
EG: You have been taking pictures of religious subjects all over Europe – Fatima, Naples, Venice…
NG: Yes, for years. Especially churches all over the world and votives and Saints. I find the architecture of Catholic churches to be some of the greatest beauty and I feel some serenity when in
them. Even if I am Jewish I was fascinated in Tokyo by the shrines and temples, all the color and
beauty religions wrap themselves in. I love the churches with ex votives especially those painted
by the people and the innocence of that faith. I’ve photographed my parents a lot and very much
feel that they’re Jewish even though my father’s an atheist and I was brought up an atheist from
the age of four.
EG: Going back to Naples and religious subjects, the image of the Madonna di Capri, a very contemplative and fascinating picture, has never been produced. How do you choose what you produce?
NG: That’s a big question. I think photography is about editing. I used to take thousands of pictures, but even this week in Turin photographing the paperoles collection, I’d take hundreds
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and hundreds of pictures but the process of editing is where my art is. It’s not necessarily in the
photographing because I don’t set things up very much. I usually just photograph exactly what’s
there. And then it’s in the editing that I find the pearl. If you take enough pictures, as I do, you’ll
find some good ones! It’s almost accidental. I leave a lot of it up to chance. Which is really not at
all of this time. I’m very much a dinosaur, as an artist.
EG: You have spent the past week looking at paperoles and photographing them, and I was wandering how you first got acquainted with paperoles, and what drove you to show such interest in
collecting them and displaying them in your bedroom, as was seen in the exhibition Air de Paris
at the Centre Pompidou in 2007?
NG: I don’t collect them specifically because they’re paperoles; I collect relics. I have a vast number of relics, be they Saints or bones of Saints. The paperoles are one of the most beautiful presentations of ways of showing relics. But the prime aspect for me is that of relics. So I live with lots
of bones around me, lots of bones of Saints. I carry a little paperole of Saint Barbara (my sister’s
name was Barbara). I don’t really know why it became a sort of consuming obsession for me
about 10 or 15 years ago, when I started collecting these objects. Yes, I already had them when I
moved into 14th Street, so that makes it 15 or more years.
EG: Which was your first paperole? Is there one you cherished the most?
NG: They change. My relationships with my objects are like my relationship with the paintings
and the statues in the Louvre. I believe that everything has some kind of spirit in it, and when
I leave home, I say goodbye to my home. Any object that I like I imbue with a kind of soul, so
I can spend hours moving the objects that I love around, letting them speak to each other, but
there’s never a favourite one. Or rather, there’s always a favourite one at one time, but then another becomes the favourite for a while… I remember the first one that was really important; it’s
still in my bedroom. It’s a box with a kind of oval hole in the middle and large bones of Saints.
I always had that within my eyeline wherever I’ve lived. It’s always in my room.
EG: I noted the comment you made the first time we walked into the collector’s home in Turin:
“one of the rare persons who collects like me!”. What does collecting mean to you?
NG: For me collecting has nothing to do with any part of me that is anal-compulsive… it’s not
about keeping things for me. For most collectors, it is about organizing, but I actually give the
things I love the most to the people I love the most. Or I did for years. There’s been a few people in
my life for whom I never go anywhere without buying a present, so they actually own the things
that I love most. I think giving gifts is so important.
EG: They represent your love for them.
NG: Yes, but it’s not just love: it also shows that you know who the person is. It’s a really deep
psychological thing giving gifts. The friend that I grew up with, David, he has the best parts of my
collections! I bought Guido many gifts for a long time. There’s usually one person in my life at a
time for whom I buy lots of gifts. Right now there isn’t anyone, unfortunately. So I can keep some
of it for myself! I don’t collect like normal collectors. Just like the paperoles collector he gave me
two of his great pieces, in one week, that’s like the kind of thing I would have done if he had been
in my house. It’s about sharing. For most collectors, it’s about consuming and keeping to fill some
emptiness in their life. I know in lonely periods my collections are a sublimation for relationships. I have a large collection of religious relics, but also books and I collect some mid-century
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furniture, and kinds of dolls and drawings, photographs, a lot of fabrics and taxidermy, like he
does. I have many different collections. But I don’t have lists anywhere, ever, of what I own, and
I don’t catalogue or categorise them. And as I said, I surround myself with things I love if I give a
gift to someone I love, I give the thing I love most. Most people give the things they don’t want so
much, but a real gift is to give the thing you love the most.
EG: Earlier, you mentioned Saint Barbara and your sister. I understand you have quite a few
Saint Barbara images around…
NG: Yes. I went through a long period of collecting Saint Barbara and finding out about her.
I actually went to Italy to find every relic and sign we could find of Saint Barbara, including her
bones and where she was born, and the well where she drank and to a four-day celebration in
Catania. I also went through all of France with Raymonde to every town that had anything to do
with Saint Barbara. These were months I spent travelling. And I did a piece called Sisters, Saints
and Sibyls, a three-part film with the major part about my sister, Barbara, and the other part is
about Saint Barbara, and the third is me. But the important character is my sister… and Saint
Barbara.
EG: You’ve been in Turin many times, visiting friends, exhibiting at Castello di Rivoli…
We went the other evening together to the Church of the “Consolata”…
NG: That was great, absolutely great. I didn’t know it existed. I knew a place like that, outside
of Naples, but I had no idea that there was a similar one in Turin. An amazing place. And it
has also the ex votos, which I started collecting in the 1970s; first a boyfriend in Greece got me
on to them, and then I got them in Mexico in 1981, and then I started buying them in Italy.
But anyway, I have a collection of ex votos which are very, very dear to me, and I also have a large
collection of ex voto paintings, which I love. I could spend the whole day looking at those. I love
people’s belief, but… it may be sacrilegious to other people to say this and I don’t mean to disrespect their belief, but I love belief in a superstitious way.
EG: Thank you for your time and all your efforts.
NG: I love this town. It’s been great.
turin, 25th november 2011
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Objects of devotion, works of art and the influence of Rome
1. manual labour in convents At the end
of the 16th century, as an outcome of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) there was a renewal of
religious life in Europe. Two centuries earlier,
the mystical current that had originated in
northern Europe had influenced the cloistered
nuns to pray in contemplation before the image of the Saviour. This gave rise in Flanders
to the enclosed gardens in which the nuns
would gather amid a decor crowded with relics
and statuettes of Saints. These little paradises,
whose blooms recall those shown in tapestries
of the time, for the nuns constituted the place
of mystical union with Christ, the spouse who
would fulfil their expectations.
The Council of Trent convened by Pope Paul
III Farnese was a response to the Protestant
Reformation movement, linked to ideas of ethics and morals, but from which it distanced
itself in stressing the Eucharistic ritual, devotional practices and monastic life. Reformers
soon emerged who renewed the rules of religious life, and figures who proposed an alternative to the monastic life envisaged by Saint
Benedict: a community experience that would
be better suited to the new pastoral direction
adopted by the Church.
In a convent of nuns, the strictly regulated life laid much stress on manual labour, not just for economic reasons, but
above all for spiritual ones, picking up on
the old Benedictine adage, ora et labora.
The labours undertaken were many and varied:
embroidery played an important part. The Carmelites, Visitandines and Ursulines have all
left fine examples of this art. Alongside these
large works, whose beauty often caused the
nuns themselves some embarrassment, they
also produced smaller and far simpler works,
which are often called convent works: embroi-
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dery on paper, paper filigree reliquaries, boxes
with religious scenes or convent scenes. These
modest works, often given as gifts to friends of
the monastery, were little known. The practice
is closely associated with the spirituality of the
17 th century and of the artistic movement of the
baroque era which it perpetuated until the 20th
century. These objects, often made of cardboard
and other fragile materials, have remained so
little known that they have never been either
studied or protected over the last century, and
have always been regarded as mere bondieuseries; many have been destroyed. And yet they
offer a real artistic dimension leaving free rein
to the imagination and creativity.
2. the materials and the technique The
term paperoles 1 defines a manner of decorating images and reliquaries using coloured or
golden paper rolled or folded beforehand; glued
along the edge, these papers could be made to
form elegant arabesques, garlands and flowers.
The work required a selection of tools that can
still be found in some convents.
The very centre of this production was located in the Catholic Alps most sensitive to baroque art: Swabia and Bavaria, the Tyrol, Alto
Adige and Trentino, and spreading out to Piedmont, eastern France, the valley of the Rhône
and Provence. The objects were made by cloistered nuns: Sisters of the Annonciade, Poor
Clares, Carmelites, Carthusians, Cistercians,
Sacramentines, Visitandines and by a few male
communities. The objects decorated might take
the form of a flat box containing some fragmentary relics, adorned with a frame and glazed,
but also of painted or embroidered images, agnus Dei, small figurines of glass filigree, bread,
biscuit or terracotta.
The decoration evolved over the years and
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simplified at the end of the 18th century in the
wake of developments in the decorative arts;
the paper used varied in colour and there was
less use of gold. In Swabia, there was a preference for crinkled silver and gold thread en
bouillon. The practice continued into the 19th
century, but was often mechanised, to the detriment of elegance and spontaneity. In the 20th
century, reliquaries with paperoles were still
being made by nuns in Bavaria and in the Lake
of Constance region. These works are rarely
signed, and the art market occasionally presents a few examples. This permanence from
generation to generation makes dating these
objects a difficult task.
3. the influence of rome After the Council
of Trent, Catholicism was centred once again
on Rome, the see of Peter; it was not yet the ultramontane movement of the 19th century, but
nevertheless it marked a renewed awareness
that Rome was Head and Mother. “Romeness” established itself as a reaction to the sack of Rome
in 1527 and by taking into account the directives
of the Council Fathers and the papacy’s desire to
be at the centre of the Catholic reform. The old
orders were reformed: Teresa of Ávila and John
of the Cross reformed the Carmelite movement
around 1540, followed in France by Madame
Acarie and Pierre de Bérulle; Jeanne Freymiot
de Chantal and Francis de Sales founded the Visitation Order in 1610. Several new orders were
created to add support to the papacy: in primis,
the Jesuits (1540), who greatly contributed to the
reaffirmation of Rome’s primacy, but also the
Theatines (1524), the Barnabites (1530), the Clerks
Regular of the Mother of God of Lucca (1574) and
the fathers of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri (1575).
These would soon carry this new manner of perceiving the unity of the Church beyond the Alps.
In training young people in their colleges and future priests in their seminaries, they introduced
the concept of “Romeness” into local churches.
The cult of Saints was encouraged by the
Council Fathers: “the holy martyrs and of others living with Christ, which were the living
members of Christ and the temple of the Holy
Ghost, to be awakened by Him to eternal life
and to be glorified, are to be venerated by the
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faithful, through which many benefits are bestowed by God on men”2. Some Saints were
so popular that the faithful who visited their
tomb would wear a hat with their effigy, as in
the case of Ubaldus of Gubbio and Fidelis of
Sigmaringen; those who travelled to Viterbo
to venerate Saint Rose would depart with the
measurements of her hand, which would protect them during their lifetime.
Roman authority stressed a historic confirmation of the Saints; to this end, Cardinal
Baronius published the Martyrologium romanum, a list of Saints venerated by the Roman
Church, established in accordance with scientific criteria and purged of legendary tales.
This calendar is often “staged” with the juxtaposition of tiny relics set into a gold paper tempietto. The relic did not work as a talisman; its
medieval significance was starting to decline.
The faithful would no longer ask some marvellous or even miraculous deed of it. The relic
of the Saint – and even more that of the martyr – was simply contemplated, inviting one to
prayer and to an expression of faith close to that
of the Saint himself. While the bodily ascent
and its excesses diminished, preachers praised
those who welcomed death in their quest to follow Christ. The relics of Roman martyrs were
in demand everywhere, sought after by dioceses, monasteries and princes. They were placed
in reliquaries that became the daily destination
for the faithful. Domestic reliquaries adorned
rooms, oratories and could even, in the case of
the smallest ones, be slipped into a pocket; the
famous canvas by Philippe de Champaigne, the
Ex Voto of Sister Catherine de Sainte-Suzanne,
shows the prayer of two nuns from Port Royal
around a small oval pocket reliquary, decorated with paperoles. The reliquary was considered the waiting room of the Resurrection,
and embellished with this in mind: the often
fragmentary relics for the home were shown in
a flowery, luxuriant setting; some scenes with
figures would recall the life of the Saint. Like
in the Middle Ages, this represents the depiction of the Saints, a materialisation of their
communion with the living faithful. In places
of worship, cathedrals, churches, convent and
abbey chapels, Saints’ bodies were presented in
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box reliquaries with glass sides, the skeletons
dressed in splendid garments, because the
Saint had conquered death and was victorious
over sin. Thus garbed, he could serenely await
the day of Resurrection and pass on a little of
his virtue to those praying to him.
The rise in power of the Roman Church
also took the form of revived interest in
pilgrimage. The Holy Years of 1575 (Gregory XIII), 1600 (Clement VIII) and 1625 (Urban VIII) brought many pilgrims to Rome.
Encouraged by the practices of the Oratory,
they would visit the four great basilicas and
a few other churches considered significant,
such as San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, Santa Croce
in Gerusalemme and San Pietro in Vincoli; this
was called the pilgrimage of the Sette chiese. The
faithful witnessed the triumph of the Roman
Church and returned home with some highly
significant souvenirs: images of Veronica, waxes, agnus Dei and relics. From the 17 th century,
the Cistercians of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem
had the privilege of making agnus Dei, also
known as holy waxes. These were oval medallions made using wax from the Paschal candles
of the Roman basilicas and those offered to the
Pope for the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple
festivity. On one side, these bore the image of
the Paschal lamb with the name of the reigning Pope and year of his pontificate, and on
the other, a religious scene or effigy of a newly
canonised Saint. These medallions would be
blessed by the Pope, generally in the week after Easter, by dipping them into holy water to
which was added balm and chrism. The agnus
Dei was accorded numerous graces that caused
it to be considered as sacramental. Despite the
prohibition stressed by some canons, some
were painted in various colours or gilded.
Some large agnus Dei were made using the wax
mixed with dust from the catacombs sanctified by the body of buried martyrs, and for this
reason called paste of the martyrs. They were
doubly Roman and as such venerated 3.
The image of the face of the suffering Christ,
known as the Holy Face or veil of Veronica, is
preserved in Saint Peter’s in a high niche set
into one of the central pillars. As its name
suggests, it is a veil on which is printed the
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face of Christ. It is shown on great feast days
and especially during the holy year. Pilgrims
could buy a painted or printed fac-simile and
medals of it. The reproductions show the veil
with the entire image of the suffering face of
Christ; the veil, whose folded appearance is
often rendered, is generally held by a woman
or by an angel. These objects also enabled the
faithful who were unable to travel all the way
to Rome, and cloistered nuns in particular,
to undertake an inner pilgrimage by proxy.
The holy face was also reproduced in relief, in
wax or in stucco, without the support of the
veil. The holy face was not the only fac-simile
brought back from Roman pilgrimages. Pilgrims could acquire the reproduction of a nail
from the Cross from the Cistercians of the Holy
Cross, casts of Christ’s footprints venerated at
the Quo vadis Domine oratory on the via Appia
Antica, or of a link from Saint Peter’s chains,
preserved at San Pietro in Vincoli. Returning
home, these objects were entrusted to the nuns
to be placed in a box decorated with paperoles
4.
4. devotions introduced by new religious
institutions, the reformed visitation
and carmelite orders The cancellation of
self is the catchphrase of Teresa of Jesus adopted
by the Carmelites of France and of the French
school by Pierre de Bérulle and, to a lesser extent, by Saint Francis de Sales. In September
1604, with permission from Madame Acarie,
Pierre de Bérulle established several Spanish
Carmelite nuns in Paris with the aim of founding a reformed Carmelite convent. The founder
of the Oratory of Jesus developed a theocentric
spirituality, that is based on the contemplation
of the infant Jesus in His simplicity and the
total destitution of a newborn child. He called
on the faithful to destroy their self just as God
had done in adopting this fragile, defenceless
condition. In many Carmelite monasteries,
the Infant is shown as a wax, wooden or plaster statuette, alone or at the centre of a box,
surrounded by flowers and garlands forming
a small paradise; in some cases, He bears the
instruments of the Passion, because Pierre de
Bérulle considered that the Infant declared
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His death even as he was born: “He takes life to
die”5. The Infant, often called the small consolation, had a calming effect within the convent
and counterbalanced the absence of maternity
in the young novices.
Manual work was encouraged in the new
institutes, where it was considered a prayer
without expectations; a collective, anonymous
one. The articles they made were not considered works of art; they were made simply, with
few means; not because the means did not exist, but as a sign of doing away with superfluity, of abnegation. The raw materials were “not
to exceed an écu”, according to the directives of
abbé Chanut, a visitor to the Carmelites, who
died in 1695 6. These were objects made from
odds and ends: “it was always customary to
make use of neither gold nor silver, unless it
be for the Church”7. The little subjects showing a nun praying, set within an eggshell are
highly significant. Indeed, what could be more
fragile than an egg, and yet it can give life to a
living being. The prayer of the nun within the
egg shows that while she may be nothing, her
prayer is great for it sustains the world and
human works. This is the visible expression
of Teresa of Ávila’s todo y nada. It was within
this devotional context that the Memento mori
developed, with a meditation on death and
vanity, at times associated also with the recitation of the rosary. The painted death’s head
found room in an alcove, with the death’s head
sculpted in bone, ivory or cast in bronze, could
comfortably be kept in a pocket, protected by
a shagreen case or included amongst the beads
of the rosary. At times, the head is double, with
the skull on one side, and the face of Christ on
the other.
The nuns’ box was neither a reliquary, nor
a little paradise, but an object of devotion; it
might in some way be considered an enclosed
garden. It reveals daily life within the convent
and enables the spectator to discover the intimate environment of the nun’s world: the bed
or palliasse, the work table, the work itself, the
discipline and modest decor associated with the
spirituality of her religious family. It is also the
reflection of her spiritual life. Its closed layout
satisfied the nun who saw in it the evocation of
her own confinement and depiction of her in-
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ner attitude. She was shown in the same situation as Mary receiving the greeting of the Angel; like her, she is sewing or working on small
labours. She waits. The moment shown is that
of the Annunciation, when Mary answered the
Angel: ecce ancilla Domini. In other words, it is
a summary of the nun’s spiritual life, the sublime moment of her religious commitment, her
acceptance of God’s intentions for her modest
person. This is the essential message this items
conveys to her outside family and to the world
8.
The cult of the Sacred Heart flourished
amidst the order of the Visitation of Holy
Mary after the apparition to Marguerite Marie Alacoque, at the monastery of Paray le
Monial (1673). This cult gave rise to numerous
depictions of the Sacred Heart being adored.
Contemplation of the bleeding organ made it
possible to perceive the perfection of Christ’s
love for humanity. The heart of the worshipper
should strive to resemble Him to the point of
no longer being distinguishable from the the
divine heart. Placed at the centre of these cutout canivet images and of the Visitandines’ baubles, the Sacred Heart was often surrounded
by other hearts forming a sacred circle around
it. Some reliquaries include fragments of the
hazel tree close to which the apparition took
place.
*
**
The Enlightenment does seem to have had
much influence on these practices. In the convents, the nuns continued to use their nimble
fingers to make embroideries and paper decorations with imagination and skill. In the 19th
century, devotion returned with the ultramontane religiosity; the archaeological digs in the
Roman catacombs and the opening up of the
Holy Lands by the Ottoman authorities revived
the taste for pilgrimage and provided materials
suited to becoming objects of devotion. The Sacred Heart was in France especially exalted, as
was the image of the veil of Veronica, the cult
for which was revived by Monsieur Dupont, the
holy man of Tours, and by numerous founders
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of orders.
notes
1 In French papiers roulés.
2 Last session, 3rd December 1563. Giuseppe
Alberigo, Les Conciles œcuméniques, le concile de
Trente, Paris, 1994, t. 2, vol. 2, p. 1412.
3 Bernard Berthod, Pierre Blanchard, Trésors
inconnus du Vatican, cérémonial et liturgie, Éditions
de l’Amateur, Paris, 2001, p. 69. 4 And if they travelled via Munich, Rom in Bayern,
they would bring home a facsimile of the tongue
of Saint John of Nepomuk, martyr of confession.
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Lorenz Zenetti, Das Jesuskind, Verehrung und
Darstellung, Munich, 1987.
6 Alain Girard, Entre toutes les femmes, Pont-SaintEsprit, 1998, p. 17.
7 Collective, Trésors du Carmel, Tours, 1879, t. 1, p.
121.
8 Bernard Berthod, Elisabeth Hardouin-Fugier,
Dictionnaire des objets de dévotion dans l’Europe
catholique, Éditions de l’Amateur, Paris, 2006, pp.
45-48.
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glossary of terms
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devotional creations from cloistered
agnus dei ◊ Wax objects of varying size and oval
or round in form, made by melting Paschal candles
from the basilicas of Rome which are then blessed
by the Pope in the Sistine Chapel on Holy Saturday.
These ritual objects are usually decorated with reliefs on either side: on one side is shown a devotional image (the figure of a Pope, a Saint or sacred
event) and on the other at the centre is the agnus
Dei – the Lamb, symbol of Christ – with the name
of the reigning Pope and year of the Papacy shown
around the edge.
papal bull ◊ A document written by the Papal
Chancery on which is applied the Pope’s seal to declare its authenticity.
canivet ◊ Little works made by cutting paper,
tracing paper or thin parchment using a canif or
pocket knife with narrow blade.
cedula ◊ A small strip of paper or parchment
placed within a reliquary indicating the name of
the Saint or martyr associated with the relic.
papiers roulés or paperoles ◊ A specific type
of reliquary made by twisting slender strips of paper (literally rolled papers) with golden or coloured
edges to create refined, detailed decorations imitating gold thread. The relic, contained within the
box, is made more precious by rich compositions of
paper and other materials, such as wax, fragments
of bones attributed to Saints and martyrs, little
parchments, ivory, crystal and coloured glass, cuttings of fabric, shells, coral and beads.
This type of reliquary, made by cloistered nuns be-
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longing to different female monastic orders, developed in the 17 th century in Catholic countries and
spread through convents and homes until the 19th
century.
paste of reliquaries or “of all saints” or
“of several martyred saints” ◊ A paste made
of a mixture of cardboard and ground bones, often mixed with soil from cemetries and catacombs
containing the bodies of Saints and martyrs. This
material, already used from the end of the 17th century, was then shaped and painted to create figurines and statuettes, medals with images of a Saint
or reliefs with sacred scenes. There are frequent
inscriptions such as “di più ss. Martiri”, “Pain de S.
Réliques”, “s. plu. m.” or other letters to indicate the
presence of this mixture in the reliquary.
little paradise ◊ A small three-dimensional devotional object, sealed off with glass and populated
with small figures and statuettes of Christ and the
Saints – in wax, papier-mâché, porcelain or verre
filé – and decorated with elaborate plant decorations of paper and other materials. This type of sacred composition derives from the hortus clausus,
symbol of the Madonna, that was common since
the 13th century in cloistered convents in northern
Europe.
seal ◊ A seal of red sealing wax bearing the distinctive marks of the ecclesiastical authorities;
when applied to the red silk ribbons of a reliquary,
it bears witness to its not having been tampered
with.
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Corraini Edizioni
Quilling
Devotional creations from cloistered orders
It is often the unexpected beauty of small and simple things that
arouses the greatest wonder. Quilling. Devotional creations
from cloistered orders (the catalogue of the exhibition, curated
by Elena Geuna, at the Pinacoteca Gianni e Marella Agnelli,)
offers us an insight into these little jewels, created using the
minutely detailed art of quilling.
AA VV quilling
cm 24 x 28 | 272 pages |
brossura con alette lunghe | 49,00 Euros |
Made between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, and
known in France as paperoles, these quilling reliquaries were
made for the home or for convents, traditionally by cloistered
nuns. They were decorated with intricate compositions in paper
and other materials (wax, ivory, glass and crystals)and were
designed to add embellishment to the relic held inside.
ISBN 978-88-7570-341-7 |
English and Italian texts |
Quilling. Devotional creations from cloistered orders gathers
together some of the finest examples of these miniature works
of art. Examples include pieces from the private collection
of American photographer Nan Goldin, who is showing
photographs taken especially for the event.
With around 200 images of paperoles and their minutiae,
an essay by Bernard Berthod, Consultor to the Pontificial
Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, and
interviews by Elena Geuna with Nan Goldin and other collectors.
The catalogue – designed specially to enhance the silhouettes
and decorations of the works – mixes different types of paper
to emulate the fragility of the paper scrollwork decorations
themselves: small masterpieces of huge symbolic value that
reveal the lifestyles, rites and traditions from which they derive.
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