Cacti. Works in Glass from the Bersellini Collection 1920-2010, Milan.

Plant, around 1980, red, black crystal glass, blown, pinched thread of aquamarine glass.(*)

I would like to have a room, an empty room. 

In a sunny day of winter, I would lift my pots from the terrace and store them in the room, lining up unknown species of cactus on a table by the window.

Cacti, plants and other flowers in glass were part of the exhibit “The Flowers of Murano. Works in Glass from the Bersellini Collection 1920-2010,” held at the Bagatti-Valsecchi Museum in Milan from May to July 2012. Floral themes inspired these beautiful and elegant objects created by famous Venetian glass masters, heirs of a tradition developed in Venice during the 17th century. They used different styles and tecniques for contemporary objects that returned the natural world from realistic flowers to monstruous fantastic shapes. Cacti were among the favourite plants. Reading the interesting introduction in the catalogue, I discovered that this choice was not accidental. Around 1930, "real succulents along with reproductions in painted wood, ceramic and especially Murano glass."(1) were highly fashionable plants for home furnishing. 

And, for a couple of months, beautiful flowers and plants in glass decorated the refined rooms of the Bagatti-Valsecchi Museum, an apartment at the first floor of an old palace in the heart of Milan where the rich collection of artworks and furnishings collected by two noble brothers, Fausto and Giuseppe Bagatti Valsecchi, at the end of the XIX century is on display. 

I would wait for the snow, with my precious cacti safe inside my room.

Cactus, around 1980, black glass, crystal, blown, red and aquamarine vitreous threads worked with pincers.(*)

Various Plants and Plants with Flower, around 1980.(*)

(*) Pauly & C. - Compagnia di Venezia e Murano. Replica of models by Ercole Barovier presented at the XVI Venice Biennale in 1928.

Note:
(1) Pg. 28, I Fiori di Murano, Catalogue.

Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Milan, May 2012.

Further reading:
I fiori di Murano. Opere in vetro dalla collezione Bersellini 1920-2010.
The Flowers of Murano. Works in Glass from the Bersellini Collection, 1920-2010. Curated by Rosa Barovier Mentasti, Sandro Pezzoli, Cristina Tonini, Marsilio, Venezia 2012.

Links:
Bagatti Valsecchi Museum, Via Gesù 5, Milano.
http://museobagattivalsecchi.org/en/evento/11/i_fiori_di_murano.html

A Chiyogami pattern: spring blossoms of a cherry tree.

 

I would like to have a room, an empty room.

In a cloudy day of spring, I would turn my back to the uncertain sky to search, among my Chiyogami sheets, something colored and happy to bind my notebook, something fresh and vaporous like the spring blossoms of a cherry tree.

In Japanese, Chiyo means “thousand generation” and Gami “paper.” Chiyogami is a type of Japanese paper developed during the Edo period (1603-1868) in imperial Kyoto and later spread to Tokyo and Osaka. Its origins are probably connected to the court, where noble women used refined sheets of paper to write letters and poems and to wrap gifts. Other sources trace them back to a princess, Princess Chiyo, known for her insane passion for coloured papers. During the eighteenth century, however, this beautiful decorate paper lost its exclusive use becoming a requested souvenir among countryside people who visited Kyoto and Tokyo. Once back in the country, they used Chiyogami to decorate the interior of their homes, creating wall panels, covering small boxes and tea tins, or making kimonos for paper dolls. Countryside papermakers printed this paper with wood blocks in bright colours and fine patterns inspired by the designs of the sumptuous silk kimonos worn by the elegant ladies in towns. Geometric shapes, elements from everyday life, from the theatrical tradition and classical literature provided the themes elaborated in the Chiyogami patterns, returning an interesting portrait of the life in Japan of those years. Nature was an endless source of inspiration. Over the centuries, images of flowers, leaves, animals, and other natural elements were selected for their beauty and codified in symbolic meanings. Cranes represent longevity, carps perseverance, peonies goodfortune, turtles happiness. The ethereal cherry flowers that announce spring after the long winter are associated with the transient nature of life and mortality, the delicacy of their petals with innocence and simplicity.

I would bind my notebook using a precious sheet of Chiyogami with spring cherry blossoms to remind me of this spring.

Photos:


TravelinaGarden


Chiyogami paper: Shepherds London


http://store.falkiners.com/store/go/about-us/

Raccolto in preghiera, Aldo Mondino, Milan.

I would like to have a room, an empty room.

In a chilly day of winter, I would carefully sweep the floor and make room for a large carpet. I would heap thick layers of grains creating geometric patterns with dark brown and green minute lentils, orange corn and white small grains of rice. It would be a prayer carpet, an homage to Raccolto in preghiera (In prayer), the floor installation created by Aldo Mondino (1938-2005) in 1986.

In 1993, the Italian artist presented this work at the International Art Exhibition held in Venice, Venice Biennale. The carpet measured around 3x5 metres and was made with 50 kilos of grains, such as rice, peas, chickpeas and lentils. The first idea, however, dates back to the eighties, and to the oriental atmospheres absorbed during one of his trips to Morocco. Northern African countries fascinated Mondino. Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, but also Spain, reconciled him with his Jewish origins and offered, to this curious and open-minded artist, endless inspiration and freedom. Imagination and reality mingled creating a unique atmosphere; in his words, it was “like being immersed in a picture.”1 Walking around, his ironic, playful and short-sighted eye captured, often by chance, objects, colours and characters later elaborated in original and impeccable compositions. The series entitled Carpets, for example, was conceived during a walk in the Soko Chico, the small market place in Tangier. Here, a panel of building material confused with a carpet with fringes inspired to Mondino the idea of painting carpets on this wood-cement surface. Experimenting with different materials and techniques was not unusual for this artist, who worked with lamps, candies, sugar and chocolate, but part of his need to find newer and freer languages.

The starting point for Raccolto in preghiera was connected to Tangier too, and to his meeting with the Moroccan writer Mohamed Choukri. Mondino developed the mosaic of grains sold in the souk in geometric shapes on the floor: rectangles, triangles and long parallel rows that seem to return the stylized shape of a mihrab. The prayer niche, the Door of Paradise that in mosques points towards the Mecca showing the direction of the prayer, transforms the funny design of grains into a prayer carpet. Essential object in the Muslims’ daily rites, it offers a pristine surface for the moment of devotion and guides the worshipper with the symbols and messages hidden in its patterns.  Mondino, however, did not ascribe symbolic meanings to his works. He was more interested in other aspects, such as the suggestions created by the connections between words and objects. In this work, they evoke the prayer, an intense and silent moment, for Mondino, similar to painting. He interpreted this solemn and fleeting instant creating a temporary work that recalls other countries and cultures, but with an amused eye, as none is supposed to kneel and pray on this carpet made of grains.

I would look at my carpet, an ephemeral carpet that another sweep will turn into a pile of grains.

1 Incontro con Aldo Mondino. L’arte come luogo di preghiera e di interazione per un altrove, a cura di Luciano Marucci, Hortus, semestrale di poesia e arte, Arti visive, Stamperia dell’Arancio, Grottammare, 22/1998. Pg. 277.

Further reading:
Incontro con Aldo Mondino. L’arte come luogo di preghiera e di interazione per un altrove, a cura di Luciano Marucci, Hortus, semestrale di poesia e arte, Arti visive, Stamperia dell’Arancio, Grottammare, 22/1998.

Links:
Aldo Mondino Fundation
http://www.aldomondino.it/news

Photos:
Travelinagarden, except for 
Tappeto, 1985, olio su eraclite, 143 × 200 cm from Aldo Mondino Archive 
http://www.aldomondino.it/opere/dettaglio/90

A Swallowtail (Papilio Machaon), Red Admiral (Vanessa Atalanta) and Other Insects With Shells And A Sprig Of Borage (Borago Officinalis) - Jan van Kessel the Elder.

I would like to have a room, an empty room.

In a sunny day of late spring, I would spread seashells on the floor looking for those shiny and mysterious shapes painted in this Flemish still-life dated around 1659. 

The author, Jan van Kessel the Elder (1626-79), lived in Antwerp where he was a distinguished flower painter member of the prestigious St. Luke’s Guild. Painting was a family tradition, his father being Hieronymus van Kessel, a portrait painter, and his mother, Paschaise Brueghel, the daughter of Jan Brueghel, famous for his still-life paintings of flowers. It was a dynasty of talented painters that, begun in the sixteenth century, would continue up to the first years of the eighteenth century.

Jan’s subjects include allegories, fables and landscapes, but his best compositions are those suggested by the collections inspired to natural history with flowers, butterflies, insects and shells. Art reflected the increasing interest in natural science, a study more and more based on direct observation and experiments rather than abstract theories, spurred by the introduction of new exotic specimens from the West and East Indies derived from the Dutch successful trades. Painters glorified the abundance of nature and the prosperity of the country with beautiful paintings whose subjects never withered, an important tool for scholars and valuable works of art. Still-life paintings, until then an exercise for beginners, turned into a refined and very competitive market divided into specialized niches according to the subjects. In the “vanitas” still-life, the passage of time and transience of life were remarked by skulls, bubbles and watches, the “banquet” still-life offered the image of sumptuous and luxurious tables that invited to celebrate, and the “floral” still-life exalted the fleeting beauty of flowers. 
Shells were often part of these compositions as rare and exotic specimens, as symbols of the sea that brought wealth to the country. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, seashells from the South Seas were expensive objects of desire for rich collectors, fascinated by their beauty and endless variety. Their purchase was considered an investment and a sign of distinction; specialized clubs thirved. Jan van Kessel included seashells in his paintings, often working on wood and copper, painting from nature or scientific texts, to create panels to decorate collectors’ cabinets. In this painting, a white background emphazises the individual specimens, represented with extreme attention to details, colours, shadows, and shapes. Butterflies, insects a blue flower of borage and shells: Tectus Conus, Conus Marmoreus, Strobus Fasliatus, Murex Rectirostris, Conus Recurvus and other shells.

In the evening, after a useless day of research, I would close my room and leave for the sea.

Photos:
A Swallowtail (Papilio machaon), a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) and other Insects with shells and a sprig of borage (Borago officinalis), Jan van Kessel Wikipedia commons;
TravelinaGarden.