Many visit museums in search of solace and enrichment, but the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan is trying to extend its therapeutic reach by taking some of its iconic masterpieces to a local research hospital.
Details of works by artists from Brera, from Francesco Hayez to Raphael, have been enlarged in high definition and pasted on the walls of the corridors and waiting rooms of the Humanitas hospital in Ronzano, in the metropolitan area of Milan . Project organizers say the partnership will improve patient well-being.
A hospital corridor lined with paintings from the Pinacoteca di Brera collection © Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
The Pinacoteca di Brera has one of the finest collections of Italian painting in the world, with particular emphasis on Venetian and Lombard artists. For the “Brera in Humanitas” project, the curators selected details from 15 works in the museum and enlarged them to a ratio of 1:36. The walls of a corridor present the faces of the lovers of Hayez de The kiss (1859), while a waiting room of the radiology department was decorated with the vaulted gallery surrounding the temple of Raphael Marriage of the Virgin (1504).
The art has been reproduced on a special material resembling the canvas of the original paintings. The labels are written in English and Italian, and patients can access information about the works via QR codes that direct them to a dedicated website. A number of selected details show natural settings, such as rolling hills reflecting in a lake from Francesco Francia Annunciation (1505) and the Technicolor of Filippo De Pisis Flowers at the window (1938).
A patient at reception © Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
Unveiling the project at a press conference in Milan on Thursday, Gianfelice Rocca, president of the hospital, said the initiative would “contribute to the well-being of our patients” by making hospitals more beautiful. Brera director James Bradburne told reporters that museums, like hospitals, are places that take care of people. “In Brera, from the start, we imagined a different kind of museum,” he said. “We took the museum away from the idea of fun, free time, tourism and income, and said that a museum should be like a hospital; a place for the community when people are in need.
The Brera-Rozzano initiative was born out of a similar collaboration in 2018 between another Humanitas group hospital in Bergamo and the Accademia Carrara museum in that city.
Alessandra Quarta, Bradburne’s former assistant at Brera and now director of Milan’s Museo Poldi Pezzoli, told reporters she wanted to expand the project to Milan after accompanying a family member to hospital in Bergamo. “I was completely overwhelmed by these stunning images from the Carrara Academy,” she said. “They give a different meaning to waiting, the reception of the hospital becomes more human.”
