Chi perde l'aureola? L'artista e il sacro nel primo Novecento ["Who loses the halo?": The artist and the sacred in the early 20th century]

Through an interdisciplinary comparative reading of Max Ernst 1926s painting, La Vierge corrigeant I'enfant Jesus devant trois tdmoins, and of two texts by Baudelaire, Elevation and Perte d'aureole, this article aims to develop a critical reflection on the desacralization of the figures of Jesus and of the artist in the first half of the 20th century. To this end, I will employ Erwin Panofsky s methodology of iconological analysis to show how the painting relates to and establishes a dissonant dialogue with a longstanding iconographic tradition representing the daily, familiar and apocryphal aspects of Jesuss life. Furthermore, I will analyse the influence of De Chiricos metaphysical art and of Savinio's theoretical-writings on Ernst's artwork in order to evaluate to what extent this painting should be interpreted as an example of the paradoxical rediscovery of the sacred by the vanguards, paradoxical in that it never overcame the nihilistic turn represented by the death of God.