Salon del Restauro Fortezza da Basso Florence Italy

Dear Art lover,

     Back in mid-November, I attended an event about restoring artworks of all kinds.  Or many kinds, at least.  The Salon del Restauro in the always-fun-to-visit Fortezza da Basso not far from the Santa Maria Train station in Florence, Italy, was a joy.  I was glad that I went alone.  I love looking at old things and I am attracted, perhaps sadly, to things that are not perfect.  I find beauty in destruction and decay, but not of violence.  And of course, not always.  Some things are just gross.

     I am also a multitasker.  At the time I was looking for a new school to enroll in so that I could obtain a new student visa to remain in Italy.  I had looked at several language schools, but was not convinced that their program would last several years.  And I have often been curious about the restoration process for art.  At the very least, I might learn more about chemistry in painting and know more about how to create a new work of art without it dying an early death.

     I am launching my Kickstarter project for bronze casting very soon, so I will just leave you with some of my favorite snapshots from the Salon del Restauro in Florence, Italy.  If you have any questions about the images, please post them on the actual blog page and I will answer them there.  If you have a question, there are no doubt others with the same one.

     Thank you for hanging with me in this wacky art life!

Please share this with anyone you think might enjoy this post!  Thank you.

Kelly

~ Kelly Borsheim, sculptor, painter, writer, teacher

http://BorsheimArts.com

PS 
Whoops... I have done it now. The project is now LIVE on the Internet.. Please help me spread the word and participate if so moved: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/borsheimarts/casting-call-im-melting-melting-into-bronze

Fresco Santa Trinita Church

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

This is the last of this series of images from the Church of Santa Trinita in Florence, Italy. I wanted to show you something that is sad and unfortunately quite common in the frescoes in Florentine churches. In this first image, I give you a snapshot giving you an overall view of the church. But look at the upper left part of the image: In a church in which there is quite a lot of symmetry and order, you can see that this part does not. It is because of damage over the years.


In this second image, you can see not only how much of the original fresco is missing, but you can also see how lovely the colors are. I cannot help wondering how beautiful this original artwork would have looked when it was new.


In these last two images, you can see the warmer fresco colors. I also really enjoy the border patterns and how they placed several complete compositions into one giant composition that worked with the architecture. And not unlike when I destroy my street paintings, I often find beauty in the ruins of . . . well, many things.

I am not sure, but I believe that the cracks and missing parts of frescoes give away their secrets on how they were made, or at least, how the work was separated into batches of plaster. I find it interesting that in the third image, one can see that the shapes of the missing art are more organic in nature. This composition, while having a number of straight vertical elements in its composition is quite different from the one across the space from it (image 4). You can see the lost space wrapping around the one figure in red’s robe.



Whereas the last image depicts a rather rectangular composition and the missing painting in the lower right is also a rectangular shape. One suspects that this artist worked in a very methodical manner perhaps based more on his brain’s way of thinking than even on the way the image was originally drawn. I wonder if he was part engineer?

Italy has such a wealth of important art and finds itself the custodian of so much of human culture and history. It must be a great expense for a generally not super-wealthy nation and it is no wonder that so many of Italy’s artworks appear to be waiting for restoration attention. I, for one, am generally happy that more artworks have not been restored after seeing how Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel was ruined by the “restoration experts.” But this is another topic . . .

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