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PEOPLE & ARTS Tuesday 27 February 2018
Vatican, Versace and Vogue team up for Met's spring exhibit

By NICOLE WINFIELD work.
ROME (AP) — The Vatican, "Some might consider fash-
Versace and Vogue are ion to be an unfitting or un-
joining forces to show off seemly medium by which
the Catholic influences in to engage with ideas about
fashion. the sacred or the divine,"
The Vatican's culture min- curator Andrew Bolton
ister joined Donatella Ver- told a crowd of Roman
sace and Vogue's Anna fashionistas and journalists.
Wintour on Monday to of- "But dress is central to any
fer sneak peek of gorgeous discussion about religion. It
Vatican liturgical vest- affirms religious allegiances
ments, jeweled miters and and, by extension, it asserts
historic papal tiaras that religious differences."
will star in a spring exhibit at The exhibit, featuring some
the Metropolitan Museum 40 Vatican vestments and
of Art in New York. accessories spanning 15
"Heavenly Bodies: Fashion papacies, will be spread
and the Catholic Imagi- among various Met gal-
nation" opens May 10 and leries as well as the Clois-
represents the most ex- ters branch in upper Man-
tensive exhibit of the mu- hattan in what organizers
seum's Costume Institute, called a planned "pilgrim-
officials said. It also repre- age" blending fashion, faith Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi and designer Donatella Versace arrive at Palazzo Colonna in Rome,
sents the first time some of and art. Monday, Feb. 26, 2018.
the Vatican's most precious With Ennio Morricone's Associated Press
treasures from the Sistine soundtrack for "The Mission"
Chapel sacristy are being playing in the background, Pope Leo XIII. the exhibit shows the influ- Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vat-
exhibited outside the Vati- visitors on Monday were They were put on display ence of the papacy over ican’s culture minister, told
can. able to glimpse a small at the Palazzo Colonna, millennia. the crowd at Palazzo Col-
Along with the papal trea- sampling of the soon-to- a former papal residence "Part of the power of the onna that clothing oneself
sures, the Met show in- be-shipped Vatican bling: in downtown Rome that is church has been how they is both a material necessity
cludes garments for more The white silk cape em- a jewel of the Roman Ba- look, and how they dress," and a deeply symbolic act
ordinary mortals by design- broidered with gold thread roque period. Wintour told The Associ- that was even recorded in
ers spanning Azzedine Alia that once belonged to Wearing a cardinal-appro- ated Press. "They have this the biblical story of Adam
to Vivienne Westwood, all Pope Benedict XV, and priate red and black vel- extraordinary presence." and Eve.
set against the backdrop the emerald, sapphire and vet tunic dress, Wintour, for Wearing his red-trimmed “God himself was con-
of the Met's collection of diamond-studded miter, whom Costume Institute's clerical garb and red zuc- cerned with dressing his
medieval and religious art- or pointed bishops' hat, of space was renamed, said chetto, or beanie, Cardinal creatures,” Ravasi said.q

State of the art: Museum takes hi-tech look at Vermeer

By MIKE CORDER ended up where exactly parent wall could be used
THE HAGUE, Netherlands and in what intensity on to establish just what the
(AP) — This really is state of this painting," said Prof. Jo- painting looked like when
the art research. ris Dik of the Delft University Vermeer applied his finish-
Experts at the Mauritshuis of Technology that devel- ing touches in around 1665.
museum in The Hague are oped the scanner. "So it's a "You can imagine a really
using the latest technology way of let's say looking over fabulous digital reproduc-
to take a long, hard look the shoulders of Vermeer tion," Gordenker said. "Our
at one of their most prized and watching him paint best guess of what she orig-
paintings, Johannes Ver- the painting and see him inally looked like."
meer's "Girl with a Pearl Ear- make choices." Meantime, the museum
ring," and they are inviting Museum Director Emilie director is looking forward
the public in to watch. Gordenker said that data to getting new insights into
For two weeks starting Mon- collected in the coming the famous painting as it
day, experts are pointing a two weeks will provide an- undergoes what amounts
battery of high-tech ma- A Macro XRF scanner is used to study in minute detail the sur- swers to many questions to a full body scan.
chines at the 17th-century face of Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece "Girl with a Pearl Ear- she has about "the girl." "In every space she looks
ring", at the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, Netherlands,
masterpiece of a young Monday, Feb. 26, 2018. "How did Vermeer actu- different and now she looks
woman whose enigmatic Associated Press ally build up the surface of very vulnerable without her
gaze has earned her the the painting? Where did he frame," Gordenker said.
nickname of the Dutch made such advances that deck was an X-Ray Fluores- start? What's underneath "She looks a little smaller.
Mona Lisa. the museum says scan- cent Spectrometry scanner that paint layer?" she said. It has a different charac-
The iconic painting was ners and X-ray machines that uses a thin beam of "What kind of paints did he ter and you always learn
last studied in 1994 during that don't even touch the X-rays to examine the dis- use? Where did they come something from that. The
a conservation project. In surface of the canvas can tribution of pigments below from?" more different angles you
those days, they took paint provide new insights into the surface of the painting. Perhaps most intriguingly of can take, whether it's re-
samples from the priceless how Vermeer painted the "An XRF scan really shows all, the information gleaned search or just display, the
work to examine. girl and the materials he what blobs of paint on the by researchers working be- more you learn about your
Since then, technology has used. The first machine on pallet of Vermeer's studio hind a specially built trans- collection."q