The third initiative of the exhibition “I Cieli Aperti” is surprising and unrepeatable and is part of the path of culture and beauty towards Jubilee 2025. The exhibition “Dali’s Christ in Rome” opens on Monday, May 13 and It can be visited for free until June 23. In the church of San Marcello al Corso, in the center of Rome, one of Salvador Dalí’s most famous works will be exhibited, the Christ of Saint John of the Cross, known as The Christ of Port Illigat, oil on large canvas from the year 1951, exceptional loan from the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.
Next to it will also be exhibited the object that inspired the work of the Spanish surrealist artist: it is the small drawing-relic of Christ Crucified created in the second half of the 16th century by Saint John of the Cross after receiving a mystical revelation and now, preserved, in the holy Monastery of the Incarnation of Ávila, will arrive in Rome thanks to the generosity of the monastery and the bishop of Ávila, Monsignor Jesús Rico García.
The two works will be exhibited together for the first time, side by side. Truly, a unique opportunity to observe two equally dizzying works of faith and hope in dialogue. Although Christ seen from above – in both works – appears even more crushed by pain, we know that we are looking at him just as the Father saw him from heaven at the moment when the Son returned to put his spirit in his hands, thus immersing ourselves in his mercy, feeling that we too are looked upon.
The exhibition of the painting “Christ of Saint John of the Cross” marks the third art and faith event of the exhibition “The Jubilee is Culture”, after “El Greco in Rome”, which was exhibited between September and October 2023 in Sant’Agnese in Agone, which with more than 288,000 visitors in a single month was enormously successful, and the exhibition “100 Cribs in the Vatican”, between December 2023 and January 2024, which registered an influx of more than 280,000 visitors .
