Description
In the General Audience of September 20, 1978, Pope John Paul I defined Iucunditas as the ability to convert our reaction to adversity into a joyful smile. As already noted by Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine, Iucunditas, in accordance with the “glad tidings,” defeats pessimism. Perhaps the most complex and most exquisitely religious Virtue. How can we represent pure joy without slipping into the praise of idiotic unawareness? Even more so in a painting that ideally positions itself above “The Fiery Angel: Prokofiev’s Vengeance” © Agostino Bergo (2022), representing its sublimation? “Iucunditas” © Agostino Bergo (2024) is dominated by the color yellow, particularly in the iridescent gold of dawn described in B. Pasternak’s “The Spring Time of Ice.” From the Resurrection of the physical body of Prokofiev’s Renata, mortified in life, we move to the apogee of a femininity that is pure, enveloping, and all-encompassing joy. Filled with all the hopes and dreams of the new dawn of the East, this Allegory is simultaneously a fully blossomed woman (in form) and innocently childlike in an almost playful pose. No resentment or vengeance for wrongs suffered, but playfulness in communion with True Joy, which is only transcendent.
