SCALING GRÜNEWALD
The Genius of the German Renaissance in the Words of Giovanni Testori
Casa Testori, 9:00 p.m., Saturday, September 28, 2024

Grünewald, “the only painter, mind you, for whom any work of attribution seems not merely impossible, but utterly unimaginable; so external does his path appear to the rules of the great, tragic game or journey of art.”
With these words, Giovanni Testori opened his critical essay dedicated to the great master of the German Renaissance. It was an essay unlike any other—free from stereotypes and conventions—offering a dizzying interpretation of an artist whom Testori felt was profoundly his own.

The text has long fascinated readers far beyond the world of art criticism. As Testori himself recalled in his Conversationswith Luca Doninelli:
“Orazio Costa once told me that among the mandatory texts students at the Academy of Dramatic Arts had to bring to their exams was my essay on Grünewald. It was used for pronunciation exercises. And he concluded: ‘That’s theatre.’”

Beatrice Verzotti, actress and one of the protagonists of Antonio Latella’s Bottega Amletica Testoriana, has taken up that invitation, performing a reading of the text—a true ascent of Grünewald through Testori’s words.

The reading is accompanied by a montage of images curated by Davide Gasparro.