World history: Photo project “Giotto. Frescoes of the Church San-Francesco” in Novosibirsk

December 14, 2012 the Novosibirsk Art Museum opened a unique photo exhibition “The face and the Word”, the uniqueness of which is that per se it is an author’s dialogue of the famous Italian photographer Elio Chiol with frescoes by great Giotto, an artist and architect, the most colorful figure of the Renaissance and a Siena master Pietro Lorenzetti. 

Elio Chiol – a hereditary photographer, critics call him a major neo-realist in the contemporary Italian photography. Special place in the work of Chiol takes an Old Italian town of Assisi, the city, according to historians, hardly changed its appearance from the XIII century. Assisi - a kind of spiritual capital of the Italian Renaissance, here was born and lived the founder of the Franciscan Order of Saint Francis.

Over his Assisi photo anthology Chiol began working in the 50-ies of the last century, during which time he has built an extensive encyclopedia of Assisi, but at "The face and the word" are presented only the photos taken at the church of San Francesco, photos, and fragments of frescoes by Giotto and Lorenzetti. Elio Chiol offers us his vision and interpretation of the images created by the masters of the Renaissance.

The exhibition was a success in Italy; Novosibirsk became the second city in Russia, where it would be displayed with the support of the Italian Institute of Culture in Moscow.