From the age of magnificence comes a new magnificence in motion pictures.

So reads the tagline for the 1965 biopic about Michelangelo, “The Agony and the Ecstasy.” The age of magnificence certainly earns its name in the film as well as the in the artwork — the museum’s Kress collection, made up of Italian Renaissance paintings.

The Georgia Museum of Art is running a three-film series, so students can experience the magnificence for themselves.

The Georgia Museum of Art has launched a three film series to ‘contextualize’ the Italian Renaissance art it depicts. FILE/The Red & Black

Carissa DiCindio, the museum’s curator of education, said the museum is very excited to show the series in conjunction with the collection. She emphasized why the films are important when learning about the artwork contained within it.

“The films in this series, beautiful in their own right, also were chosen to contextualize works in our collection,” DiCindio said. “Visitors can learn more about the artists of this time, the time period itself and subject matter through these films.”

The museum is also sponsoring the Kress Project, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation’s donation, a prominent feature at the museum over the years. Hillary Brown, director of communications at GMOA, attributes the collection to inspiring other Renaissance projects — encouraging academic works, symposiums and other events.

“It’s not a large collection; only 12 paintings, but it’s really inspired our entire Italian art initiative at the museum,” she said. “For example, every other year we co-organize a symposium on early Italian art with the art school. We’ve done a lot of publications on Italian art as well. And all of that kind of comes from the Kress collection that we have.”

The Samuel H. Kress Foundation — which is dedicated to preserving European art, including works by artists Abondio and Zurbarán, among others — donated the collection to GMOA, in addition to a variety of other museums across the country. These donations were part of a larger effort to increase access to artwork in places it had not previously been.

“They’ve given them to a lot of smaller museums and museums in smaller towns, and they give people an opportunity to see these kinds of works of art in person, which they normally wouldn’t have,” Brown said.

The foundation has also sponsored the film series, which is free and open to the public. Brown hopes that people will take the opportunity to see it as it offers a more personal light on the painting in the Kress collection.

“[The collection] encourages a sort of personal communion with the work of art and that’s what we’re really trying to emphasize with the whole Kress project,” she said. “And the film series is a part of that. It’s a way to encourage people to relate to art in a different way. In a way that’s less stuffy. It’s a little more relatable.”