Luisa Berretti
The sculpture is the art of creating, the form, for images, using the technique of carving a raw material or even assembling together different materials.
The sculpture is also a project to connect, to link among themselves various aspects of emotional, aesthetic and cultural to provide an opportunity for knowledge and reflection on a variety of problems including a relationship with the territory where the artist works.
The choice of material, therefore, is important and essential to convey emotion, to express a concept, an idea to fix. How
operating process, first the idea, then, slowly, this, calling, it's you who chooses what material manifestation.
The sculptor Marino Mazzacurati about wrote: "... you can not create a work of art in an area other than where it was thought, because thought creates in itself the features existing in matter itself, features that are nontransferable and translatable to another "(Moments of marble, p. 272).
traditional materials, used largely in the past, new materials, the sculptor has always tried to speak to him in a manner using suitable materials depending on the time preference, age, fashion, or otherwise. Beanies
Franco was introduced to sculpture by himself. Initially, the wood, then the "stone of the Arno" (Columbine, limestone, sandstone). Forge iron has attracted to the immediacy of the final result, but the charm of the fusion of metal (bronze, aluminum, brass, gold, silver) then led him to artistic and finally in sculpture. Difficult, complex and reasoned it was approaching to marble.
Not wanting to deal with the sculpture of caps here in the formal sense and style, as others have already written (see 1991 and Franco F. Beanies Beanies 2004), this exhibition hosted at the exteriors and interiors of the Villa Medici of Cerreto Guidi, I would take another aspect of the sculpture of this artist, with a question: but what they mean to Franco Beanies material of his sculpture?
Wood returns as tree presence and becomes the second all-new idea and filtered by the mind of the sculptor, in TWO TREES (2007) [No 14], where our national walnut, clear in itself, is filled with dark veins, clear and contrasting, engraved on the surface rough cuts and decided to create intense chiaroscuro effects, trees are made more realistic by the nodes that appear here and there on the trunks tapered.
From the trunk of a tree, the artist reveals, "the strength to lift, a chisel, another tree, TREE (2002) [No 15]: the work is growing poplar wood, and recall the old chestnut trees, giant, carved into the smooth surface of the body into several parts, which suggests a close relationship, and induces the desire to caress the surface with rising hand up on the branches and leaves cut more hours now less recognized.
And yet, by assembling together several parts, was born WOOD (2005) [No 13], four trees, fir wood, carved strokes clear and focused, have rough surfaces, natural wood and cracks have widened and enhanced nodes are dark on light wood. Here the poetic humanized tree, which occurs in the sculptures of caps, it is evident in the branches, and comes to call, arms stretched wide open and up.
As if to demonstrate the non-universality of the statement by Vasari about the wood, according to the author, can not have the "plumpness and softness of the marble and bronze, is the "number" of women-ENVIRONMENT: that of 2004 [No 23] Wood of hornbeam and sweet-smelling cypress, one of the same year and mahogany wood of hornbeam [No 24], and another, 2002 [No 28], only hornbeam wood. Three women, formally different from each other: one that portrays, which is another show, but with reserve, the other still lying, more loose and free, and all have the same polished surface, the wood grain and create their faces and soft bodies pictorial effects. The play of curvilinear shapes between the tangled hair and the environment "cut" in which they are always present and is characteristic of the works of caps this period. The presence of an environment in mahogany, and then a contrasting color with hornbeam in which the woman is made, means that this gives the breath and depth, the combination of darker color, but also for the rough surface in contrast with that smooth the figure, and the lines that look like waves that ideally could go on forever.
In Tuscany and Florence in particular, commemorative monuments in Carrara marble, has always been the protagonists in the streets and cemeteries, where the marble is "furnishings", and placed relegated - I mean the cultural influences of many - marble in an area of \u200b\u200breverent awe in the first case, and cool detachment in the second.
why not just start talking with Franco Beanies marble, but with the stone. Only when he realizes that to be found another way of expression, the first figures are born, not shiny, "glossy", but smooth, "purged" with the abrasive stone to great success, to bring out the exact color.
For Caps, today (but since its "discovery"), the choice of the block is a part of and attendance at Carrara quarries and marble deposits. Is there a piece rather than another is revealed / reveals to his attention, he asks availability. He carefully checks, asking for the source, the goodness of the grain (and especially that it is not a "cottaròn") and then it does cut the wire. Already has in mind the sculpture in the block ... Michelangelo as enunciated in the Rime "He has the great artist no idea / what marble itself is not circonscriva / with its supercar, and only one comes / the hand that obeys the intellect" (Rime, 151 vv . 1-4).
Speaking of marble sculptures of Beanies is natural to follow a chronological order, as in the exhibition are works made of this material over a period of time ranging from 1985 to 2006.
In the three marble sculptures created in 1985 approached another material, steel steel: the titles are Woman with Flowers (Carrara marble and stainless steel) [No 10] MAN IN DIFFICULT ENVIRONMENT (Carrara marble, stainless steel and yellow Siena) [No 12] and human-environment (especially No. 5) (statuary marble and stainless steel) [No 11].
In the sculpture of Beanies, stainless steel, artificial material and technology, presence of modernity, "live" as opposed to marble, natural materials and traditional excellence. The stainless steel, which reflects a particular light, sharp, as entrusted to the use of daily-use, serves to delimit portions of the environment is where our analysis, the dating of a work today.
Sometimes stainless steel is the basis of his work-environment that brings the memory to a forced and difficult environment, as in 'Men in difficult environments, consisting of tubular elements that allude to the exhaust pipes of cars, the same as those wrapped vertically now, and not horizontally, from the yellow Siena marble ... and the work's title says it all.
In Woman with flowers, we find the woman who portrays himself, defends itself, it covers, and beside her a flower. The flower, pevsneriana memory, is the synthesis of two opposing semicircular. The effect, which wants to be artificial and formulaic, is sharp. And finally
Man-Environment (part n. 5); that the presence of stainless tank crushes more the effect of a clenched fist in the arm "eradicated" by the constant and repetitive tragic message.
Although the topics covered by caps remain the same over the years (the woman / man, the environment, the tree) the search for new plastics solutions and formal is constant, and is also expressed, but not only, in ability to combine different possible situations in an environment of multi-colored. As can be seen in the two sculptures of 1988 both entitled Woman-ENVIRONMENT, a white marble statuary and yellow Siena [No 7], the other in Carrara marble statuary and ordinary [No 8], but also in the other two-WOMEN'S ENVIRONMENT, one of 2001 statuary marble and black portoro [No 25], the other in 2004 in marble statuary and Calacata [No 5]. These works have in common the fact of presenting the female figure made of marble statuary, which, white, contrasts with the environment fully, achieved in just a colored marble and always different. The veining of the marble, the color spot, and the shadows that form in the space of environments tangled and moved the stop light that affects differently on each of these sculptures and is reflected in the crystal structure and homogeneous white, I dare say "hot" marble.
I BONSAI: in that of 2003, peach flowers and marble Calacata [No 18], another in 2004, marble statuary and Calacata [No 17], and the Landscape (2004), Professor of Carrara marble and bardiglio [No 19], all different colored marbles and carefully chosen - in the first two works, to put everything in harmony with nature - in the third, to form and oppose the environment and the tree. Here then the search yields more highly naturalistic, sculpture-WOMEN'S INTERNAL ENVIRONMENT (1992) in that gray-veined marble ordinary - Carrara [No 20], with the result that the woman become one with the chair as if the forms and also the emotional and environmental reasons were now inseparable in the two parties to a transaction of the composition - the human environment and the object attribute -.
"Marble is a subject with meaning, not a passive support, dominated, as are the metals and plastics melted and poured into molds set. The marble resists or breaks when it is subjected to the 'programs' of forms, volumes, contradicting its morphology. Each block of marble hides the wonders to discover, to reveal the edge of a meeting where, as partner of the artist who calls, asks availability and patience "(John Joppa, Sculpture in Marble Work, p. 55).
You certainly can share these thoughts and these statements are nothing more than the modern transliteration of their own thoughts of Renaissance Platonism in which the Michelangelo himself had grown up: "He has no concept of the great artist / c'un marble itself not circonscriva / with its supercar, and only one comes / the hand that obeys the intellect" (Rime, 151, 1 - 4).
But if this is just the marble, not less Caps sought bronze in the ability to make the light does not always allow that marble.
E 'with the enthusiasm of years ago that the artist is back foundry in order to achieve a light, almost passable, olive-sized. Through the technique of casting "lost wax" with its cast and vents, risers and clay by kneading, and then the chisel and coatings, all contributes to the completion of that eloquent work. The tree, hence the Tuscan olive, embodies the memory of a place, traditions and customs of the people who live there and who lived, of everything that has happened and changed.
The answer to my original question? We provide the same sculptor: "... because we all work these materials? "... To ..." the knowledge of many techniques for making "... maybe ..." at the expense of a greater production of sculpture. But research is also this: the ability to let the story breathe, dialogue, and say without giving all conclusions. "
