A collection is always a confession. Giovanni Agnelli and donna Marella’s is no exception to the rule.

For several years, Giovanni Agnelli belonged to the Board of Governors of the Louvre. He was unable to attend all the meetings, but when he did they would take quite a special twist. He rarely spoke, but listened with the utmost attention. What intrigued him was understanding how a public institution as large as the Louvre (2000 employees) worked, how decisions were made and who made them, the sources and ways of financing an institution of that size, its independence, or rather its autonomy, with respect to the supervisions ruling it (direction of museums of France, ministry or rather ministeries, of Culture of course, but also of Finances). He asked the right questions, with always at the back of his mind – he scarcely concealed the fact – the notion that Italy might, somehow or other, benefit by this example. The other members of the Board of Governors asked him about the growing role of patronage in Italy and in the world, about Europe’s economic and cultural evolution… His replies were listened to in complete silence by all, including the union representatives, dazzled by this gentleman’s ease in speaking perfect French with an intentionally rough accent, by the soundness of his judgments [British English: judgements], and also by his determination, beyond the specifics of each institution and each country, to wonder about the future of museums and the inevitable, indispensable changes they would be forced to face, or rather, what would be far preferable, that they should foresee and bring about.

We should also speak of the public figure when referring to the Giovanni and Marella Agnelli Foundation at the Pinacoteca del Lingotto in Turin. The Avvocato’s intentions are clear; they are manifold. The point is to offer, I shall quote him, “pleasure”, “beauty” and “joy” – the word comes back more than once – to his fellow citizens. The point is to ask one of the greatest architects of our time to create a magnificent building that means something in the history of the Agnelli family and of twentieth-century architecture. A great specialist of museums he enjoys serving (and that he does not enjoy using, as is, alas, the case of a number of contemporary architects), Renzo Piano has proven his ability, an ability that has produced classics, in Paris, Houston, Basle (the list is far from complete and Renzo Piano has some fine surprises in store for us, especially in the United States). To these celebrated places we can now add Turin, not so far from his beloved Genoa and its museums, altered after the war by Francesco Albini.

The last point is to educate. I have no idea why that word is so unpopular these days. People prefer to talk about pedagogy, “didactics”, cultural service. The truth is works of art exist for the pleasure they give us, the delectation Poussin advocated, but this pleasure, frequently, requires a preparation, an education, that school has the duty to liberally dispense, to offer and give to everyone. School teaches to read, it must learn to teach to see. Otherwise, the future of museums looks, in my opinion, very gloomy. Learning to look at a work by Matisse, means being protected from the surrounding moroseness (like being protected from the rain), means entering a world that, at first, seems easy to approach, but that actually gives up its secrets only very slowly.

The public figure and the private figure: is Giovanni Agnelli truly a collector or instead has he not, since his earliest childhood, just the desire to retain the works that appealed to him and spoke to his heart, his sensibility? A collection is a disease, a fever, an unpunished vice like reading for André Gide. Certainly, I have often said and will say so again, collectors will all go to heaven, but it is still true that the collector lives only by and for his collection. It is his form of creation in a minor tone, modest indeed, but undeniably a form of creation, whether we think, I shall quote at random, of Isabella d’Este, Pierre-Jean Mariette, Peggy Guggenheim, Cassiano dal Pozzo – a kind of creation you want to keep to yourself like a secret garden, or else the other way around and you want to share it with the most people possible.
There is a word that has lost some of its meaning but that in the eighteenth century preserved all its nobility – so there was a category of members of the Royal Academy of painting and sculpture, the Academy that became the Academy of Fine Arts of which Giovanni Agnelli is a corresponding member, that were called “honorary amateurs” – and that seems to me to perfectly suit Giovanni Agnelli, that of amateur. Amateur in the sense of loving, loving the Venice of Canaletto and of Palazzo Grassi as they will remain forever, the Dresden of Bellotto that will never be again, the Italy of Modigliani, Severini and Balla, the Turin of Primo Levi and Larry Rivers, the France of Manet and Renoir, the “blue” and Cubist Picasso, the Nice of Matisse, the greatest poet of color of the twentieth century.

Just one more word: every single one of the paintings of the foundation of the Pinacoteca Lingotto is a masterpiece. The notices of the present catalogue indicate their dimensions and date, mention their provenance, situate them in the career of the painter or the sculptor (I was forgetting Canova) in the history of art. They inform, they instruct, they attempt to penetrate their mystery. This is essential, but it is not everything. The people in charge at the Lingotto feel each work of the donation deserves its “file”, its monograph, a catalogue and an exhibition entirely devoted to its study, the circumstances of its creation, the preparatory sketches… Who, prior to the Avvocato, owned the work? What was the painter striving to say? Did he seek and reflect at length or did inspiration come over him in a flash? Who were the artists of the past who had looked at it? The list of questions a visitor may well ponder over in front of a painting, of a masterpiece, is endless. Each file will attempt to provide the best answers. For the inquisitive and for the amateur…

Pierre Rosenberg