MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Botticelli, Canaletto, Hayez, Pollaiolo and Sassoferrato enter the hospital. Humanitas San Pio X and the Poldi Pezzoli Museum join forces in a unique and evocative project that combines beauty and care: “The Poldi Pezzoli in Humanitas.” The great masterpieces of painting and collections of antique clocks and ceramics of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, a flagship of culture in Milan, enter the everyday life of Humanitas San Pio X, enriching the renovated spaces with beauty and creating a connection between art and people. In this renewed context of the city hospital, “The Poldi Pezzoli in Humanitas” aims to represent the most human dimension of care and attention to the person. A project that continues in the wake of “Care and Beauty,” which began in the Humanitas hospitals of Bergamo with the works of art of Accademia Carrara and continued at the IRCCS of Rozzano, with the Pinacoteca di Brera. “The Poldi Pezzoli, excellence of Milan and jewel of the city, is a symbol of refined collecting, a treasure chest of the most splendid examples of Lombard, Florentine and Venetian painting. We are grateful to the Museum for having entered into this collaboration with our hospital for an initiative that is unique in the world and yet part of a tradition that-we can proudly say-was born in our hospitals with the first projects in Bergamo and Rozzano. “Care and Beauty” is the way Humanitas wants to be close to its patients and collaborators. And not by chance: beauty, in fact, is one of the elements that guides the way we create care spaces, which are normally deputed to be functional and safe. We do this because beauty can make those who enter the hospital to heal and to be healed feel better,” says Gianfelice Rocca, President of Humanitas. “Picasso said forcefully that ‘art shakes from the soul the dust accumulated by everyday life,’ in these words there is a truth that with scientific method has been proven many times: art is good for you,” continues Alessandra Quarto, Director of the Poldi Pezzoli Museum. “The encounter between the Poldi collection and the spaces of Humanitas proposes a different perspective on the hospital, where beauty and the sharing of emotions become a support for those who enter it and for the experience of care. Beauty is an experience, as is care. Life is in fact a continuous experience of care received, from birth, and the presence of art in a place of care and research is a great added value.” A powerful communicative tool and vehicle of empathy, art is enhanced outside its usual context to accompany the moments of waiting and staying for patients, their caregivers and hospital professionals. Selected details from 12 artworks adorn hospital waiting rooms and corridors. Maxi-format enlargements, created from ultra-high resolution (400 million Pixel) photographic shots, total about 350 square meters of immersive art: smiling portraits, gestures of care and landscapes. At the heart of the operation, the study that experts from the museum and the hospital made to choose works and details suited to the place, with the aim of making the care journey more serene as well as pleasant for the professionals. And so, the reassuring face of Pollaiolo’s Portrait of a Young Woman, an iconic work from Poldi Pezzoli’s collection, greets patients, family members and caregivers at the hospital’s entrance; a detail of the face of Martinelli’s Portrait of a Woman smiles at those heading toward the Radiology and Radiotherapy area, where hands taken from Sassoferrato’s Annunciation keep company with those waiting for treatment. Of Botticelli’s Madonna and Child at the entrance to a ward, hands caught in a sweet gesture are visible; in the area devoted to the Ophthalmology outpatient clinics, a young Hayez in his “Self-Portrait in a Group of Friends” smiles behind his glasses as he observes people in the waiting room. The landscapes of Canaletto and Il Grechetto along the corridors excite and support those entering the hospital; the gaze of Previtali’s Portrait of a Man observes professionals in the area dedicated to Research. What’s new in this project compared to previous “The Cure and the Beauty” projects: clocks from the most important collection of antique watchmaking in Italy stand out in the long corridor of the hospital’s Pyramid, while the collection of ceramics brightens the walls of the cafeteria dedicated to Humanitas professionals. Again, with reproductions capable of astonishing by reversing the order of magnitude between observer and observed object. The very high-resolution images were printed on a special wallfilm that reproduces the material effect of canvases, bringing out brushstrokes and small cracks. The project preserves the hospital’s functional elements: lights, temperature controllers, fire extinguishers, fire exits and monitors are now “set” between the brushstrokes of the Poldi Pezzoli masters. More than 700 professionals including doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, technicians, biologists, OSS, volunteers and staff work at Humanitas St. Pius X. For them, the hospital organized visits to the Poldi Pezzoli Museum and art history meetings with the Museum’s Guides and Educational Services, to preview the project and become testimonials for other colleagues and patients. “La Cura e la Bellezza” is a Humanitas project, unique in Italy, which since 2018 has brought art from Italy’s most important Museums and Art Galleries to the waiting rooms and environments of its hospitals, from Bergamo to Rozzano and Milan, transforming the facilities into spaces of inspiration and well-being. Thanks to collaborations with the Accademia Carrara (2018) and the Pinacoteca di Brera (2023) and, now, with the Poldi Pezzoli Museum, patients, caregivers and hospital professionals can immerse themselves in artistic masterpieces, helping to make the care experience more serene. The “Care and Beauty” project has also spawned parallel initiatives, such as “Works in Words” (2020), in which writers, musicians and artists composed unpublished works inspired by the paintings on display, creating a bridge between art, health and speech. Now those stories and related artistic images live on the wards of Humanitas hospitals in Bergamo. The artistic direction of all these projects was taken care of by Daniele Lupo of Lungomare.(ITALPRESS).
Photo: Humanitas Press Office
