Franco Maria Ricci Editore presents, in collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum from Lisbon, Portugal, the new volume NATURA MIRABILIS. Art and Nature.
Through a careful selection of works from the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, this publication investigates the complex relationship between Art and Nature, tracing a path that crosses eras, cultures, and diverse expressive languages.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum hosts one of Europe’s most prestigious art collections, born from the wealth of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, Armenian entrepreneur and philanthropist, a prominent figure in the international oil industry and a refined art collector. The collection spans from Egyptian and Assyrian art to Renaissance and Baroque masters, up to Impressionism and modern decorative arts. It reflects the eclectic taste and cosmopolitan passion of its collector, as well as a clear desire to preserve and transmit beauty, qualities that align him with another renowned collector, Franco Maria Ricci.
The project that gave rise to the volume began with a lecture by writer and scholar Susana Neves dedicated to René Lalique’s refined diadem Orchids, which is on display in one of the Gulbenkian Museum’s rooms. From this, a research thread on the theme “Art and Nature” within the Gulbenkian Collection developed: a through-line that runs through many of the works housed there and is echoed in the museum’s architecture, set in a garden designed by landscape architects Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles and António Viana Barreto, documented in Manfredi Gioacchini’s photographs included in the volume. Moreover, the theme is dear to Franco Maria Ricci and is frequently explored in publications (Grandi Giardini Italiani, Tesoro Mexicano, Fiori di Sicilia…) and in various issues of the magazine FMR.
The book opens with Susana Neves’ essays, which explore twelve works from the collection, analyzing the visual strength and evocative capacity of the depicted natural elements, linking them with religion and politics, literature and myth, fashion and symbolism, and weaving art and science to offer a new reading of the works and guide the reader back to the era of their creation.
The second part broadens the perspective further thanks to contributions from the museum’s curators: a series of essays that, commenting on about sixty-five works of various types and spanning diverse eras, all belonging to the collection, enrich the reflection on the dialogue between Art and Nature.
The volume is also an invitation to observe with different eyes both the collection’s masterpieces and the natural space that welcomes them. Looking through the lens of science means questioning the influence of nature on artistic forms and, at the same time, how art remodels and redefines our relationship with the natural world. It is a call for a more attentive and conscious perspective, capable of grasping the complexity and beauty of reality.
“In an era when the relationship between humans and nature requires increasing attention, initiatives like this emphasize the role that museums can and must play as spaces of discovery, reflection, and knowledge growth. Museum research allows us to broaden the meaning of works of art, cross disciplines, and build bridges with increasingly diverse audiences. This book is thus also a testimony to the Foundation’s commitment to interdisciplinarity and to the creation of knowledge that is important and accessible,” António Filipe Pimentel, Director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum.
The English edition of the volume will be available on francomariaricci.com and at the Labirinto della Masone Bookshop of Franco Maria Ricci.
Photo credits: Franco Maria Ricci Editore
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