biographycinema

Narrate with pictures

Ancient stories

In prehistory, when writing did not exist, images were a way of communicating. The artist affected his fears, his beliefs, but also the daily life of his tribe on the walls of the caves. To do this he used figures and symbols which, which have come down to us, have become precious documents and testimonies.

The 'rock art: the figures painted on the rock

The rock art that developed in the Upper Paleolithic (36.000 ÷ 10.500 BC) is the work of Homo sapiens . The first cave paintings (made, that is, on the rock) were discovered in 1879 in a cave in Altamira, in the north-west of Spain: they represent animals (especially bison, but also deer and horses) flanked by geometric signs such as triangles, ovals, rectangles. Paleontologists initially did not believe that such vivid and realistic depictions could have been made by men of the Ice Age. But, since other cave paintings attributable to the same period were discovered, they accepted the idea of ​​the existence of a real prehistoric art.

Shrines for religious rites and ceremonies

The caves used for the paintings were not inhabited. They were probably sacred places where propitiatory religious ceremonies were held (perhaps accompanied by dances and songs) to conquer the benevolence of the gods, so that they would help primitive man to survive and make hunting favorable to him.

The figures found on the walls of the caves are mostly related to the animal world: hunting scenes associated with female and male symbols, which represent the human couple and suggest the continuation of the species and its survival. For the Paleolithic hunter there was probably no contrast between reality and images: by painting reality he thought of taking possession of it and thus acquiring supernatural power.

Landscapes are not depicted in prehistoric paintings. The man is depicted in a stylized way or through the imprint of his hands, often alternating with signs. Signs, hands and animals are arranged in a precise order: almost like a form of writing .

An immense open-air museum

During the Neolithic period (7000 ÷ 2000 BC) the forms of painting and sculpture change. A new society was formed: man cultivates the land and raises animals. Hunting is no longer the only resource and in the rock depictions men, plants, animals but also everyday objects appear. In Valcamonica (Lombardy) a prehistoric civilization flourished, that of the Camuni, which produced numerous rock graffiti, signs engraved on the rock representing primitive architecture and maps of villages, (such as, for example, the Map of Bedolina ), hunting scenes, idols.

Prehistoric artists also knew how to create perspective effects, that is, drawing at the bottom what had to appear closer and at the top what was further away. They superimposed the images, created reliefs to give movement to the figure. More than 450,000 engravings have so far been brought to light: a large book engraved on stone walls that tells us of a historical period ranging from archaic hunters to the Roman age.

How was a cave painting done?

With charcoal, the contours of the figure to be represented were traced and, for coloring, ochres (yellow and red earth very common in nature), or clayey lands that previously had to be pulverized and mixed with water were used. The colors spread with the fingertips or with brushes made with horsehair or with bristles of other animals.

What did prehistoric artists draw?

The drawings on the walls of the caves tell stories of everyday life. In the Lascaux cave in France, a hunter with a bird mask is killed by the bison he is hunting. Just below is the funerary pole, that is the hunter's tomb, surmounted by a bird.

Traces of smoke and grease make us think that the artists worked in the depths of the caves, illuminating them with torches that burned animal fat.

Illustrate with words

Writing, images, sounds are born from the instinctive need to communicate. The drawing first told the story and gave visibility to the ideas. In the 20th century, in addition to images, artists used writing as well, breaking the barriers that separated the different forms of art and mixing the relationship between word and image

The art of writing

In human history, drawing preceded writing. Slowly, the designs used to communicate became stylized, transforming first into signs and symbols and then into alphabets . But the link between drawings and writing has remained very close in the art of calligraphy . In China, for example, the writing has always been a veritable art, made of designs and combinations of signs, called ideograms . Chinese writing represents objects, facts or concepts and uses the same tools as painting: soft brushes, ink stone, paper and silk.

Arabic writing is also an art, a calligraphy, which becomes the main decorative element of architecture or of metal and glass objects or even of beautiful ceramics.

Monks copy and create

In the Middle Ages it was the monks (see monasticism ) copyists of the great abbeys who created the art of miniature : these are letters drawn and embellished with decorations, characters, animals or flowers. The origin of the word miniature derives from the use of the minium, a red mineral with which the ink used by the monks was made.

The miniaturizing monk does not care that the illuminated letter is clearly legible: the first letter of the text is decorated and almost 'suffocated' by ornamental motifs and thus also assumes a magical and symbolic value.

In the Renaissance, with the invention of printing , letters lose their symbolic meanings to become only signs. The creation of typographic characters also becomes the object of study: the mathematician Luca Pacioli, a friend of Leonardo da Vinci, develops a system for calculating the proportions of the letters that will remain a point of reference for print production throughout the 16th century.

Writing in art

In late nineteenth-century France, some poets proposed a new relationship between writing and image: Mallarmé arranged the verses on the page so that the white spaces around the written words represented the silence surrounding the poet's voice. Apollinaire creates an expressive form, called a calligram , where the letters of the words, or the words themselves, are arranged in such a way as to illustrate the meaning of each poem.

Conversely, in the paintings of the artists of the early twentieth century, belonging to the currents of futurism, cubism and Dadaism (among them Raoul Hausmann), letters cut out of newspapers and pasted on the canvas begin to appear, typographic characters that have no other function than that of creating an image, a drawing: in this way the traditional patterns that saw a clear separation between the different forms of art (painting, poetry, graphics) are broken and words, texts, images and colors coexist in the picture.

The futurist revolution: the object books

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Italian painter and poet, founded futurism in 1909 . The Futurism is a literary and artistic movement, criticizing poetry and traditional painting, he wants to express in their works the new technology introduced into society by industrial progress, as the speed in transportation and electric light.

The transgressive charge and the creative energy of the futurists also transform the page and the book. Poets wander on the printed page, placing words and letters of the alphabet in an unusual way and emphasizing even empty spaces: "typographically pictorial pages" are born, which resemble paintings without being neither drawn nor colored. In 1927 the artist Fortunato Depero created the first Libromacchina bolted with two bolts taken from the workshop and applied on the hard cardboard cover.

From 1933 the first tin books, the first non-books, the object books were born.

Paint and tell

For human history, the end of the first millennium was a period of extreme importance. After a long period of stagnation, Europe experienced new economic, political, cultural and urban developments and progress. The arts also flourished thanks to the Church, which commissioned the artists of the time important cycles of frescoes to embellish its buildings.

Frescoes as stories: Giotto in Assisi

The main building of the medieval city was the cathedral. The Romanesque one, generally massive and imposing, proposed cycles of frescoes made on walls and pillars. These surfaces were perfect for welcoming the sacred stories of the Bible or the Gospels which, by telling the story of evil, sin, good, life and death, were intended to transmit to the faithful messages aimed at teaching Catholic doctrine and admonition of sinners.

One of the most important medieval fresco cycles is found in the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi and was executed, around 1290, by Giotto di Bondone. The painter frescoed the stories of the saint bringing a breath of fresh air: St. Francis is represented as a simple man, he has the halo but is inserted in a dimension of everyday life. All the characters of the great Giotto cycle, made up of 28 scenes in chronological order, are rendered in a realistic way and this transpires from their gestures, which reveal emotions and feelings. The architectural structures in the frescoes create a sense of depth in landscapes that have never been so naturalistic until then.

Stories of the cross

The Stories of the cross , frescoed by Piero della Francesca between 1452 and 1466 in the choir of the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, are taken from a legend that tells the story of the wood used to make the cross on which Jesus was crucified. The frescoes they represent one of the highest moments of fifteenth-century painting. In particular, the episode of Constantine 's Dream is remembered for being the first Italian painting set at night. As also emerges from the episode of Solomon 's encounter with the Queen of ShebaPiero della Francesca was fascinated by the study of light and optical games. This study was accompanied by the rigorous use of geometry and the application of mathematical rules that served to create figures with harmonious and balanced volumes.

The Sistine Chapel

One of the greatest challenges faced by Italian painting is represented by the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, in the Vatican Palaces, in Rome. The enterprise, started by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481, was completed by Julius II in 1512. He entrusted the task to Michelangelo Buonarroti , who dedicated four years of his life to painting 500 square meters of the vault of the chapel. The main theme, the creation of man and the omnipotence of God, was designed to instruct the faithful on the Old Testament. The large figures are powerful, portrayed from the bottom up, with bright and strong colors, and can be compared to painted sculptures.

What was the artisan shop?

Inside the medieval city a new reality arises: the artisan workshop. It is the place where young aspiring artists live and work alongside the master painter (but the sculptors also had their workshops), with the aim of learning all the secrets of the trade. When they are beginners they shred the colors and prepare the wooden boards with chalk and canvas; then, having become more experienced, they draw, paint and exhibit their works at the entrance of the shop.

How do you paint a fresco?

To make a fresco, natural colors are needed which, once mixed with water, are spread on the wall to be frescoed, previously coated with a layer of lime: the lime, drying, retains the colors. Since the end of the fifteenth century, artists have not only drawn directly on the wall but have prepared the drawing on a cardboard. The contours of the drawing are perforated and the cardboard is placed against the wall. The perforated drawing (dusting technique) is dusted with charcoal dust, which leaves traces of the outline to be frescoed on the fresh plaster.

Pictures of the city

Le città portano in sé l'immagine del tempo che è trascorso. Dalle città emergono non solo le tracce della storia, ma anche idee sul modo di abitare. Per secoli, filosofi, architetti, pensatori religiosi o laici hanno immaginato, e a volte realizzato, luoghi e città dove l'uomo potesse vivere in armonia in un ambiente adeguato alle sue esigenze.

Idee per una città ideale

For millennia, men have dreamed of places to live: from the garden of Eden of Adam and Eve, described by the Bible as a place of absolute happiness, to the heavenly Jerusalem, which the Apocalypse of Saint John describes " bright with gold and adorned of sapphires . " In the 5th century BC Greece, the city was a topic on which much discussion was taking place: from the architect Hippodamo da Mileto, who wanted a harmonious and orderly city, to the philosopher Plato , who dreamed of a city where craftsmen, warriors and sages each had the right place, to Aristophanes, who in his comedy Gli Uccelli imagined a city of refuge for the wise, suspended between heaven and earth.

The good governance of Lorenzetti: the medieval city

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, between 1337 and 1339, painted, in the Sala dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, a large fresco that represents an ideal vision of the territory and of the cities where people lived in the Middle Ages. With extraordinary precision and great skill the architectures, the landscape of the countryside, the people who act in those places and animate them are represented. Everything seems to flow in perfect harmony: and in fact the fresco bears the name of Good Government . Opposite to this fresco is that of Malgoverno where life situations are staged in a city governed without justice and without order.

Renaissance: city on a human scale

The ideal city of the Renaissance reflects the way in which life was conceived: man had to be the "measure of all things" and therefore all reality had to adapt to his needs. Drawings and paintings document how architects and artists imagined cities: wide streets with bright perspectives, harmony of proportions, perpendicularity of paths and use of the different orders of architecture. There are remains of ideal cities designed by Renaissance architects and never built, and we find traces of them also in some paintings of the period. For example, in The Delivery of the Keys of 1482 by Pietro Vannucci, called Perugino, the square in which the scene is set is clearly the result of an ideal study, not inspired by truly existing cities. The funeral of San Bernardino of 1490 by Bernardino Betti, called il Pinturicchio , are set in an absolutely imaginary city space, where squares, loggias and triumphal arches reign neatly: dreams of ideal spaces in which the buildings are arranged in order of importance from the center to the periphery.

Velo ... city?

In the ideal city of the futurists, art puts itself at the service of technology and the machine. Boccioni, the greatest interpreter of the dynamism of the industrial city, paints The rising city (1910), a picture in which the modern metropolis becomes a whirlwind of lights, noises, colors and movement. Even in Simultaneous Visions and in La strada enters the house (both from 1911) the city turns into a sort of violent explosion in which the crowd, the trams, the cars, the buildings collide in a chaotic urban landscape.

Greek and Roman sculpture: stone tells

For centuries Greece has influenced the culture of ancient Rome through its myths, its literature, its philosophy. Even for the figurative arts it was like this: Roman sculpture, for example, was influenced by Greek influence. With the conquest of Greece, the Roman world acquired a sensitivity and aesthetic taste hitherto unknown.

Gods and men together

Art developed in Greece in the archaic era, between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. Examples of this style are the statues of the twins Kleobis and Biton, made in Delphi by Polymedes di Argo. Two different styles coexist in architecture: the Doric style , simple and austere, and the Ionic style , more flexible and soft. In the sculptures the figures follow geometric criteria and are characterized by scarce varieties: human forms have a very simplified body.

It is in the classical age, between the 5th and 4th century BC, that the anatomy of the figure becomes important. In this period Athens reigns without rivals: splendid and colorful buildings rise in the city. The most beautiful and imposing is the Parthenon , a temple built starting from 447 BC under the direction of the sculptor and architect Fidia, on the Acropolis ("upper city"). Dedicated to the goddess Athena, the Parthenon is the most splendid example of the classical era. The frieze, which runs for 160 meters, represents the Panathenaean Procession (the most important festival in the city) and wants to offer an ideal image of Athens: gods and men who mingle in the parades in the presence of all the heroes who made the city great, in an orderly whole that symbolizes the triumph of Athenian power about chaos.

Art and architecture on a human scale

Never as in Greek culture the arts are intertwined with philosophy: the Greeks place man at the center of all things and consider him the most important creature in the universe.

The statues of the Olympic athletes are striking for their naturalness, but with identical naturalness the statues of the gods were represented: not supernatural images full of mystery like those of the Egyptian temples, but representations of a simple and harmonious beauty.

Even in buildings, each architectural element is calculated and built on the basis of the proportions and measures of the human body: a space made on a human scale for man himself.

Stone books

Roman sculpture is less attentive to the representations of man in general and points above all to the celebration of the deeds of the emperor: it is therefore the means for a real political propaganda.

The Trajan Column , erected in Rome inside the Trajan's Forum in 113 AD, is not only the funeral monument of an emperor but also a kind of 'stone book', destined to last for centuries. In fact, from the base to the top of its about 40 meters high, a spiral bas-relief runs which describes the victories of the emperor Trajan on the Dacians, a population who lived north of the Danube. The sculptor, despite the imperial celebration, also pays attention to the dignity of the defeated and manages to grasp the most dramatic and intensely human aspects of the war.

The Column of Marcus Aurelius , which is located in Rome in Piazza Colonna, was built approximately between 182 and 190 AD It takes up the model of the Trajan's Column but proposes more schematic, simpler bas-relief figures with less realism: it tells the victorious deeds of the emperor over barbarian populations by exposing the ruthlessness and cruelty of war actions.

What is a mausoleum?

The Romans called sepulchres raised to the memory of illustrious deceased mausoleums. The word derives from the name of the governor of Caria, Mausolus, in memory of which the widow Artemisia had built a monumental tomb in the 4th century BC, considered one of the seven wonders of the world.

Among the most famous mausoleums we must mention those of Augustus and Hadrian in Rome and those of Galla Placidia and Theodoric in Ravenna.

The portrait

From the Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations came pictures and portraits painted, carved or engraved on the coins to celebrate the fame and perpetuate the memory of famous people. Over the centuries, new ways of representing the human figure were born and developed: there is the realistic portrait, the court portrait, the photographic portrait, the psychological portrait.

In the face a story

In the Middle Ages the portrait was reserved only for aristocratic characters: the emperor, the pope or the king are often painted in profile and the artist does not aim to create a realistic representation but rather wants to highlight some characters of the character's personality, thanks to which he is recognized as having an important role in society.

Between the 14th and the 15th century the portrait experienced a wide diffusion among the nobility of the courts and the nascent bourgeoisie of the city. In Italy, Piero della Francesca portrays Duke Federico da Montefeltro in 1465 proposing the image of a wise, cultured, sensitive to beauty Renaissance man, depicted in the style of that era, which respects the physiognomy of man and his class social.

Leonardo da Vinci , Botticelli , Raffaello and Tiziano are some of the great artists who portray man, enhancing their internal aspects, trying to catch them in the features of the face and in the depth of the gaze.

The portrait in pose and the portrait in the courts

The pictorial genre of the portrait reaches levels of maximum refinement between the 15th and 17th century in the area of ​​Flanders (Netherlands, Belgium and Northern France) where the Flemish painters operate a real revolution. The best known is Jan van Eyck, who paints three-quarter portraits (i.e. with the subject a little turned towards the viewer) of extreme precision. In Holland, Rembrandt , by adopting the same pose, expands the representation to the whole figure and gives the subjects an exceptional vitality.

The court portrait developed in the eighteenth century is different: the most representative, the work of Hyacinthe Rigaud, is that of Louis XIV, a ruler at the height of his power. Standing before his throne, the king embodies absolute power. With a sumptuous cape lined with ermine fur and a very swollen wig, the sovereign seems to dominate the world, an effect obtained by the artist by shooting the scene from below.

The photographic portrait

In 1839 the portrait changes: photography is invented and, thanks to a tripod and a mechanical device capable of capturing images, the black and white photographic portrait is born. In the beginning, the life of a portrait photographer is difficult: 50 kilos of equipment and a bad image rendering. But technological progress helps photography to improve the quality and speed of execution. A photographic portrait is infinitely reproducible, inexpensive and satisfies the vanity of being immortalized in poses that make one's social position stand out. In the 20th century, Arnolf Rainer tears, scratches and covers his photos with paintings and drawings to indicate the search for identity of men.

The portrait in contemporary art

For Vincent van Gogh , a great painter of the 19th century, portraying himself or another meant questioning the face to find the soul. The artist draws and redesigns portraits of humble people, peasants, other artists trying to highlight, rather than the physical and external appearance of the characters he portrays, their interiority, their dramas, their emotions.

During the 20th century the portrait was transformed again: the artist no longer offered realistic and similar traits. The common feature is the deformation to which the human figure is subjected so much that it becomes almost unrecognizable, as in Picasso's portraits. Furthermore, very often the portraits are made with unusual materials taken from everyday life: sheets of newspapers, pieces of wood, jute bags, straw, iron and others.

Telling impressions and ideas

Over the past two centuries we have witnessed important changes that have changed the face of the world and Europe: scientific and technological discoveries related to the development of industry, emigration from the countryside to the city, two world wars. Art, very sensitive to this alternation of historical events, testifies and suggests new ways of seeing and telling.

Impressionism: the light that changes forms

In 1872 the French artist Claude Monet painted Impression. Soleil levant, a painting that will give its name to the artistic movement called impressionism. The impressionist artist studies the thrill of reflections on the water, discovering how shapes change as the light that touches things and that seems to transform matter changes. The Impressionists renounce the outline, the chiaroscuro and many of the academic rules on which traditional painting was based. They combine colors directly on the canvas without mixing them first on the palette, with short strokes of brush that force the viewer to move away from the picture to obtain an 'optical mix' and be able to fully grasp the overall view, the subject of the picture. Color replaces forms and becomes an instrument for interpreting the environment represented: above all Parisian atmospheres,

Expressionism: emotion first of all

The expressionism movement, which originated in the countries of northern Europe in the late 19th century, influenced the rest of Europe, ranging from literature to theater and cinema. An expressionist artist, going beyond the conventions of the artistic tradition, wants to express his personal vision of the world, even if sad, painful or even cruel. For example, in the works of James Ensor and Edvard Munch , the tragedy of life and the dramatic events of the world are shown through the deformation of the features and the use of violent colors.

Surrealism: the magic of the imaginary

During the First World War, André Breton, a medical student, served in a psychiatry department where he was able to study the works of Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, from which he drew inspiration for the birth of one of the most important artistic movements of the 20th century: surrealism . Breton becomes the leader of a movement that aims at the production of artistic, poetic and literary works strongly connected to the world of dreams and that of the unconscious, that is to our most hidden thoughts. The main idea of ​​the surrealists is that art must also represent fantasy and imagination, and not only reality.

The surrealists were 'creators of images': Dalí, Miró, Magritte, but also the Italian De Chirico, with their inventiveness they widened the frontiers of art, inserting multicolored spots, figures into architectural structures and real landscapes mythological, magical, fantastic. Surrealism is an attempt to demonstrate that there is a magical universe where thought can change the state of reality.

How do you paint a picture in the surrealist way?

Let's take a glass and draw motifs with linseed or olive oil and colored water-based inks. Oil and water repel each other and form spots ... enigmatic. We superimpose a sheet of paper on the glass and gently dab with a rag, until the composition is dry.

Looking at the spots, we try to outline with a marker the subjects and landscapes that our brain 'sees' in this fantastic universe. By cutting them from the magazines, we add further images that will complete our composition where dream and reality mix.

The art of photographing

Photography tells, denounces, expresses, chronicles and stops time in an image. His birth has produced important changes in society. From early black and white attempts to color images, photography has become an art.

Artfully made images

When the first cameras came into circulation, it was amazing to understand that, with a simple click, the instant and reality could be blocked and reproduced. In the beginning, however, photography was considered a mechanical form of expression, painters had difficulty using it and photographers often retouched the photographs with the brush; but with the affirmation of the photographer P. Henry Emerson "photography must not show the truth but what the eye sees". Painters overcome initial perplexities and learn to manipulate photographic images; at the same time, photography is recognized by everyone as an expressive art.

A world in color

According to a slogan very popular in the thirties of the last century it was enough to be able to turn a key and to press a bell to be able to take pictures!

Other steps forward are made over the past century. Since 1935 photography is colored and cameras are built within the reach of the general public, who use them to stop personal memories. Professional photographers exploit the potential of color film, which in Franco Fontana's works become an opportunity to use simple shapes, few lines and few shades. Another artist, Luigi Ghirri, instead uses color to combine objects that have nothing in common in everyday life.

The photos tell the art

Sometimes the photographs told the art. It happened in Florence, around 1850, by the Alinari brothers. Leopoldo, Giuseppe and Romualdo Alinari open a small photographic studio, dedicating themselves to the reproduction of the masterpieces of art on large photographic plates. These photos, technically perfect and collected today in many catalogs, demonstrate the mastery of Alinari at the dawn of photography and constitute a historical archive of fundamental importance.

In the 20th century, photography also became a document of history and the social fabric: for example, in the 1930s, in the United States, the group gathered around the FSA ( Farm security administration ) tells the story of Roosevelt's America. In the same years, photography opens new scenarios on the interpretation of the reality that surrounds us. Mario Giacomelli in the research on the landscape investigates, using the first aerial shots, the theme of the passage of time. Some photographers experience a surrealist use of photography, where all images become a symbol of something else or are filtered by games of mirrors. Others go into even more daring solutions, experimenting with new techniques, such as that of the off camera, which provide for the artistic manipulation of the entire photographic development process.

War in a painting

Artists from all over the world and from all eras have shown the follies of wars in their works. Among them the Italian Paolo Uccello and the Spanish Pablo Picasso who, after five centuries, described in two famous paintings, equally dramatic and intense, two terrible war episodes.

The bombing of Guernica

The civil war is the most atrocious of wars. Spain has been the scene since 1936 of a terrible and bloody military conflict between the socialist forces of the Popular Front and the nationalist groups led by General Franco, allied with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. On April 26, 1937, the German Air Force heavily bombed the small Basque town of Guernica. For four hours, bombs fell uninterruptedly, hitting the city for a radius of ten kilometers. It was Saturday, market day, many women and children were among the stalls and in the streets: there were almost 1,700 dead, thousands of injured and homeless, ruins on ruins!

A framework to narrate the unspeakable

Picasso , upset, holds the brush. For a whole month he works on a canvas about eight meters long, to narrate the martyrdom of the city of Guernica, horror, anger, fear, death; in a word, war. A woman, who screams in pain with a dead child in her arms, turns her pleading face to the bull, an image of brutality. All the other characters are turned towards him, with their heads turned, their arms raised, sinking into the ground or crawling, defeated, wounded. A dying horse, symbol of the whole people, neighs desperately. Everyone is torn in flesh, torn by a pain that has no name. At the center of the painting Picasso inserts a lamp, a glimmer of light; below, a broken flower is emerging from a broken sword. Hope is there. Picasso says:

"In Guernica I clearly express my horror at the military caste that submerged Spain in an ocean of pain and death."

A testimony

June 4, 1937 Guernicait is exhibited in the Spanish pavilion of the Universal Exposition in Paris and is immediately celebrated by the whole world. It has immense strength and power in it because it is not descriptive. It expresses, through the symbols of the bull and the horse, vital myths of Spain, the offended land, the freedom denied. Picasso builds a space for his characters, gray, black and white, where he lays bare his emotions and indignation. In the colorless painting even the space is broken and confused, there are no rules: a horror such as that of Guernica does not respect any human law. Picasso gives us in this work a testimony of barbarism, a trace that remains in the memory. The painting remains for 42 years at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; but since 1981, when a democratic government was elected in Spain,Guernica returns to Madrid.

Another story

Around the middle of the fifteenth century, Paolo Uccello painted The Battle of San Romano: the painting recounts the Florentines 'victory over the Sienese in 1432 and was commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici, the lord of Florence, the city where Paolo Uccello lives. Soldiers give way to horses; the spears cross, the militias collide. You can almost hear the gallop of the horses, the noise of the spears, the impact of the armor. The numerous knights who charge from the left of the painting seem to be one man painted in progression as he points his spear down. Paolo Uccello, who was first and foremost a Renaissance man, particularly interested in the figurative aspects, was admired by the Surrealists for his boundless imagination, but also by the Cubists, of whom some even consider him a precursor.

Cinema: seventh art

A factory of dreams and memories, cinema contains many languages. From his birth to today he has told, in black and white or in color, in silence or with his voice, the stories, fantasies, dreams of contemporary man. Cinema gives shape to the millennial desire to record movement, transforming an image reproduction technique into an art form and a spectacle.

IL umière to tell the story of life

"Come at 9 pm on December 28, 1895 to the Grand Café, Paris!" This is the invitation of the Lumière brothers to their first film screening (see cinema ). Spectators are just 35 but it is equally a triumph. The first screenings take place in shops, cafes, bazaars, during fairs and are accompanied by an organ, a piano or a gramophone.

Others had paved the way for the Lumières: Eadweard Muybridge in 1872 invented a device for photographing the gallop of a horse. In 1877 Émile Reynaud projects animated drawings in his optical theater in Paris. Thomas Edison invented the kinetoscope in 1890, a box in which an animated scene with images printed on film flows.

The seventh art is born

Louis and Auguste Lumière build a system that concentrates all the functions of the cinema: camera, development and printing laboratory, projection machine. The film dragging mechanism, the support on which the images (films) are fixed and the projection time (16 frames per second) make the projection possible on the screen: the Lumière Cinema is born.

In Italy the first screenings take place in Milan and Rome in 1896. In Hollywood studios in 1903 the first western was shot. In 1905 Filoteo Alberini made the first Italian non-documentary film, The taking of Rome . In 1911 the futurist Ricciotto Canudo coined the definition seventh art for cinema .

The first films are without sound and in black and white until the early 1920s, when direct shooting in natural colors is technically possible. In the same years the sound film was born. It's a revolution.

Charlot's silent cinema

During the period of silent cinema, comedians, short films (short or medium-length films) where actors, very good in mimicry and often reckless, were produced in funny actions with disastrous results: the most famous were Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton , Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (see Stanlio and Ollio ) and Charlie Chaplin . The latter soon became director and producer of the films that saw him starring. From the first short films he wears a bowler hat, wide shoes and wide trousers, holds a stick and has a small mustache. Charlot, his character, dominates the screens but rapidly evolves towards forms of comedy rich in social criticism.

In this sense, among the most famous works of Chaplin we remember Modern Times (1936), The great dictator (1940) and Monsieur Verdoux (1947), in which the actor makes a profound criticism of the unbridled production rhythms of the industries, ideology of Nazism and society aimed only at enrichment.

Neorealism

In Italy, at the end of the Second World War, neorealism was born , a cinematographic movement that introduced important innovations in the language of the seventh art: often the actors are not professionals, but come from the villages or the countryside, the stories tell the newspaper and the scenes they are shot on the streets, in homes, in the city or in the suburbs. The aim of neorealist artists is to objectively render the country's political and social reality in a time of great change. In 1945 leaves Rome Open City by Roberto Rossellini. It is the manifesto of neorealism, testimony to the tragedies of the Resistance and the anti-fascist struggle, in which the actress Anna Magnani plays the role of woman of the people and mother overwhelmed by the tragedy of the war.

Objects, design and advertising

In the 20th century, great changes took place in the world of the production of objects for furniture and decoration, until then the fruit and work of skilled craftsmen.

The use of industrial machines and mass production make any relationship between the shape of the objects and the one who produces them lose. The object is designed according to criteria that meet the needs of the mass market.

The Bauhaus: art in daily life

Bauhaus, the German word meaning "house of construction", derives from the ancient Bauhütten , medieval guilds of builders, artists and craftsmen who worked in close collaboration. Founded in Germany in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius , the Bauhaus is a school that was born with the specific objective of responding to the desire of architects, painters and sculptors to bring together art, craftsmanship and technology in a single work.

Gropius is concerned with making products that are functional and suitable for the purpose for which they were created, without sacrificing the aesthetics of the object. Products, therefore, mass-produced by the industry but also conceived and designed by artists. In fact, the Bauhaus welcomes not only technologists, architects and designers but also painters, musicians, sculptors, graphic designers, photographers. Among them Johannes Itten, expressionist painter, central figure of the Bauhaus school, Paul Klee and Vasilij Kandinskij.

The object of art and advertising

If we tried to imagine for a moment cities, towns, bars, theaters, cinemas without advertising, we would discover that colors, lights, posters would brutally disappear. In the 1960s of the 20th century, the world of consumption and the large quantity of objects that are produced and advertised daily become a matter of interest for artists. Thus, pop art was born in America , whose main exponents are Andy Warhol , Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg. The images and symbols of the consumer society distinguish their work, which draws inspiration from advertising and mass media: TV, radio, newspapers, cinema. The images of the stars of music, dance, fashion, art and architecture become an integral part of pop works.

Advertising, a characteristic expression of modernity, from that moment also entered the world of art. For example, the Italian painter Mimmo Rotella realizes his works of art starting from the advertising posters attached to the walls: he tears them, then glues them and assembles them on the canvas, staging the most evident 'products' of consumption.

The object becomes art: the ready made

It is in 1913 that an everyday object is elevated to the rank of an art object. Marcel Duchamp, a French artist, fixes a bicycle wheel on a white stool and invents the notion of ready made , that is "already done!". Duchamp takes an object already made by others, modifies it and makes it a real work of art. In a peremptory and humorous way Duchamp establishes that the industrial object, such as the wheel of a bicycle, if exposed and viewed in a different way, acquires a new meaning and can become a work of art. With Duchamp the creative act of the traditional artist loses importance, in favor of thought and idea. Duchamp's works initially caused a scandal among the public but were very important for the subsequent development of the

Bruno Munari

Munari, with his useless machines , travel sculptures , illegible books , puts found objects (paper, wood or metal) at the center of his works and places them in surprising, playful and lively situations. The originality of his works finds a fine example in the talking Forks , which appear as an extension of the hands. Munari thinks of them "without any practical purpose, only to let the imagination play".

Plasticine puppets: an animated world

The cartoons can be obtained through drawings or computer creations, or they can be three-dimensional puppets made with wood, papier-mâché, fabric or plasticine. The soft, modeling clay puppets have reached the general public thanks to characters such as Wallace and Gromit.

Cartoons and animated film characters

The cartoons produced by Walt Disney are among the most famous and important. In many of these, such as Snow White , The Little Mermaid , The Lion King , the traditional technique was used, that is, a sequence of colored drawings which, taken in succession, give the idea of ​​movement. The same technique has also been used by other cartoon designers, such as in the Hanna and Barbera series ( Yogi , The Ancestors ) or in the Warner Bros. series ( Bugs Bunny , Daffy Duck ).

This technique is just one of many possible ways to make animated films. In fact, the characters can also be cloth and metal puppets, as in Nightmare before Christmas , or they can be made directly on the computer, as in the two feature films Toy story and Finding Nemo . Finally, they can be built in plasticine, like the funny characters of the movie Wallace & Gromit and other stories and the funny protagonists of Escaping Hens.

Plasticine in animations

One of the first artists to use the technique of plasticine characters was Jean Painlevé, who in the thirties of the last century, together with the sculptor Bertrand, directed Barbe-Bleue . From that moment on, plasticine becomes a tool in the hands of artists to create two-dimensional animations (with the technique of cut figures), where the effect is the continuous transformation of forms: objects that become people, people who return things or change one in the other; instead, animated puppets are used in three-dimensional animations. One of the major artists who uses the two-dimensional technique is the Japanese Fusako Yusaki, while the three-dimensional animation was patented in 1985 in the United States, under the name of claymation. Thanks to it, many contemporary artists have made short films of great poetry: just think of the delicate Harvie Krumpet , of 2003, of the Australian Adam Elliot, who in 23 minutes tells the whole life of a plasticine puppet.

Wallace and Gromit

The best known plasticine characters are Wallace and Gromit. Wallace is an extravagant Englishman fond of cheese and inventions and Gromit his brilliant dog who reads Dog-stoevskij or La Repubblica di Pluto and lives in a room covered with wallpaper decorated with bones, crocheting. The wrong pants , one of the short films that sees them as protagonists, won the Oscar in 1994.

After a dog, a hundred hens are successful! Hens on the Run is a film entirely shot with plasticine puppets. For its realization, 450 plasticine hens supported by an iron skeleton were necessary to facilitate its movement and to avoid wear and tear on the joints. All of them have a scarf around their neck, to hide the junction of the head which can be easily replaced for changes of expression and beak movements that simulate speech. Who would have thought that Hollywood would also be conquered by plasticine?

How are animated films made?

While for the cartoons based on the drawings the illusion of movement is given drawing after drawing by the animators, for the animation of concrete and three-dimensional objects such as puppets it is necessary to move and modify the characters, shaping them shot after shot. In the plasticine animation real miniature sets are created: environments in three dimensions in which to place characters and on which to move the camera.

Fantastic library

"Lambicchi was given / a special saxophone, / and to offer himself, / a musical concert. / The player is missing, / but Lambicchi to himself says: / I will have one of value / with my archivernice. / Roll up your cuffs / lay it out on the portrait / of that certain Paganini / who still shines in fame / " .

Professor Pier Cloruro dei Lambicchi has invented a paint, or rather an arch-paint, portentous: just pass it on any figure, a photo, a painting, an advertisement and immediately the images become alive!

Think what a convenience! Do you have a stomach ache? Just take a magazine and here are pictures of pizzas or ice cream ready to become real and be eaten. Do you feel a little lonely? Just paint the photo of a friend and here's the company.

Not only! With the archivernice you can meet famous people: you can take the history book and have a chat with Caesar or Napoleon, or go to the cinema and smear the posters with paint. Indians and cowboys, spaceships and alien princesses will soon emerge. But be careful not to choose a horror film: you would fill the city with monsters ... Even in Lambicchi it often happens to lose control of the images that made it alive. Paganini, for example, was a violinist, what can one do with a saxophone?

" " This is a very rude act! "/ shouts the great violinist ." This joke is a joke , / that a musician doesn't need! " So he plays the big concert / handling that object , / as an expert master ... / on the poor man's groppon" .

If you want to avoid inconveniences, there is another way to make the figures seem alive: it is the skill of the artist. Sakumat is a painter famous for his skill. One day he receives the visit of a messenger who invites him to the palace of Burban Ganuan, lord of the land of Nactumal, in the mountains. This time his task is particular: with his colors he has to make the gentleman's son know the world who, due to a serious illness, can never leave the house and lives locked up in his rooms, without even looking out the window. He has never seen the mountains and plains, the village houses and the blue sky, the flight of birds or the ears of corn. The boy and the painter make friends and decide to paint the walls and ceilings of three entire rooms.

"So they explored the walls of the rooms as if they were the space of the skies. They began to imagine and distribute the subjects of the painting. " Here we will make the pasture full of fragrant flowers ... "" Yes, Sakumat! Like that of the story of Mutkul the shepherd! "." Then, we will put the hut of Mutkul the shepherd. Little baby, with the flock of red goats ... Were the goats of Mutkul red, weren't they? "." Yes. And will we also wear the lame dog, Sakumat? " " .

Gradually the walls fill with magic: flowery meadows, carts and horses, besieged castles, the sea with pirate ships. The child observes the artist's work in amazement: each new painting tells a story and it is truly magical to see the white walls that gradually transform in the whole world!

If you are not rich enough to call a painter home, there is another solution: you can go to the museum. Claudia has been thinking about it for weeks but does not want to be accompanied by her parents. She wants to go secretly after running away from home. Together with Jamie, his little brother, he organizes a perfect plan and one day, instead of going to school, he hides in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. But this is not a simple trip: the two will stay there for almost a week, day and night!

The museum is a whole world to explore, it's huge, with large rooms and vast corridors, stairways and a fountain full of coins. You can have a snack among the Egyptian mummies, wander among the masterpieces of American art or sleep in a luxury bed, even from the sixteenth century!

But the biggest surprise is a statue in the Italian Renaissance section, just purchased from the museum. It is an angel who has a great mystery: it was sold at auction for a few dollars but it could be worth a fortune if, as experts say, it was the work of Michelangelo. Claudia is fascinated by the angel and its secret. He must absolutely find out the truth. He knows that only in this way will he be able to go home.

"I, Claudia Kincaid, want to be different when I come back. For example, to be a heroine. Jamie, I want to know if it's Michelangelo's or not. I can't explain why, but I feel I need to know. For sure. Or yes or no. If we make a real discovery I will be another . " But can looking at a statue really change life? Maybe art really has this power ...

Certainly life has changed at Max's house since his dad brought a new picture home. In fact it is quite particular with that country landscape, the black crows in the sky and a gallows in the center with a lot of hanged. It is said that he was a terrible murderer who had sold his soul to the devil and had been betrayed by his son (who is seen painted on the side).

Max's dad bought it little because it is said to be a cursed picture. In fact, it's a bit dismal, but how can you believe in certain superstitions? The new purchase is hung in the corridor and nobody thinks about it anymore. Yet since then Max's dreams have become more turbulent, the atmosphere in the house becomes darker and the father weakens and gets sick.

Until, one evening: "Raucous, rough sounds. Yellow eyes of black birds. An indefinable feeling of impending catastrophe. In the darkness of the room, Max fidgeted restlessly under the covers, while the birds darted low over his head . A loop dangled empty in the wind. ... A rumbling thud. The door swung open. Max's eyes widened. He was awake . "

In front of him is the shadow of a man who grabs him by the neck, growls and screams revenge! Max kicks and punches but the man is too strong! Luckily the mother heard the uproar, took the damn picture and broke it in the assassin's head. The light comes on and Max sees his father on the ground, finally free from the curse. And don't tell me that the way the house is decorated doesn't matter!

Fear, joy, melancholy: great art always causes emotions. Bailey knows it well, who has just moved to a gray and desolate suburb where he has little to rejoice, at least until he happens in front of an amazing show:

"And then he saw it! There, on the concrete wall. He lost his breath, because the wall was covered with the brightest and most dazzling colors he had ever seen. So many colors to hide the concrete. Emerald green! Ruby red! Sapphire blue They whirled and swirled together! A kaleidoscope of stars, circles, crescents, swirling and spinning comets, twirling, twirling. "SCRIBBLE!", Exclaimed Bailey .

Bailey discovers that he has seen a 'scribbling', one of the few great graffiti in the neighborhood.

At one time, in fact, the mysterious Scribbolo wandered in the nights, trying to cheer up the grayness of the neighborhood with his graffiti. But it's been a long time now, and almost nobody remembers it anymore; indeed there are those who do not even believe in its existence. Bailey, however, does not resign himself and one night decides to explore the air duct that opens in his bedroom.

At the end of the tunnel he discovers the legendary Scribbolo jacket, puts it on and immediately feels full of magic: his fingers itch, they need spray cans and a coloring surface. Scribbolo is back! Little by little the neighborhood starts to shine with new colors and also the mood of the people changes: new loves bloom, we start to party again and hundreds of children recreate the Scribbolo Fan Club.

In comparison, little Jimmy has little to cheer about. His passion is to draw comics and he certainly does not lack talent. But at home he does not have many satisfactions: mom is always busy and the sisters always interrupt him on the best of inspiration. But the real problem is the dad: " It's not that he didn't like Jimmy, it's just that he didn't have the slightest idea what he was. He wanted a son to talk to about the pitchers and hitters averages. And instead he had Jimmy. Despite everything, he tried to do his best ... And he tried to find something to say to Jimmy, like: "Do you have to leave your comics scattered all over the floor?" ... Jimmy didn't think that Dad wanted to offend him. It was just that he didn't know how to behave with a child who drew comics ".

One day Charlie, the most admired boy in the whole school, offers to create a company: he as the author of the stories, Jimmy of the drawings. The new hero is called Bullet Head and has the mission of destroying everything he encounters: walls, heads, arms. Too bad that Jimmy, of all things, does not know how to draw hands. How can you not disfigure with all those cut arms? In short, the life of the artist is really hard: first you have to go hunting for inspiration, then you have to practice continuously to improve the style and you are never sure if the result will be liked by others. Is it worth it? Maybe you should ask whoever wrote the Jimmy story: he became a great cartoonist, famous all over the world, and now his hands are very good. ( Emilio Varrà )

Bibliography

Jules Feiffer, The superhero of the ceiling , Bompiani, Milan 1997 [Ill.]

Elaine Lobl Konigsburg, Escape to the museum , Salani, Florence 1997 [Ill.]

Giovanni Manca, Lambicchi, Paganini and the saxophone , in The heroes of the 'Corriere dei piccoli' , Eurostudio Editions, Bergamo. sd

Giovanni Manca, Pier Lambicchi and l'arcivernice , Genius, Milan 1952 [Ill.]

Roberto Piumini, Lo stralisco , Einaudi Ragazzi, Trieste 1993 [Ill.]

Philip Ridley, The fabulous Scribbolo , Mondadori, Milan 1998 [Ill.]

Paul van Loon , The thrill bus , Salani, Florence 1996 [Ill.]

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