Fresco Art in Massa

When in Pietrasanta the other day, my friends and I went to visit Hafiza's maestro, Samuele Manni. He is currently working in the sculpture studio of a very well-known sculptor Marcello Tommasi. We were allowed into his studio, but no photos and no speaking. Hafiza explained that the day before some visitors made rude comments about classical art and the sculptor was not amused. We were only permitted to enter because Hafiza reminded Samuele that we are artists who work in the classical tradition.

Anyway, later that day, Samuele took off work to drive us north to Massa (still south of Carrara, the famous town for marble quarrying). We went to see six panels of frescos that Samuele did, one of which is shown in part here. The church is "Parrocchia San Sebastiano" and is very new, in Italian terms. Samuele likes to use real people from current times in his compositions. His father Franco is the old beggar man on the right. I met him a couple of times during my last stay in Italia -- quite charming. Many of the others in the frescoe are members of this congregation.

Fresco is a medium that I find interesting, but I do not want to do. It is fast work on one hand because the artist is working with color in plaster, but of course, the scope of most frescoes usually means that the project takes quite a bit of time. Samuele told me that the actual fresco work took about one and a half months per panel, but the cartoons and design work ahead of time (including the 'bozzétti', or small drawing that gets the idea fleshed out and approved; a 'maquette' is the equivalent when referring to sculpture).

If you would like to learn more about frescos, here is a good place to start:

www.artlex.com/ArtLex/f/fresco.html

Thank you for reading!
ciao, ciao,
Kelly