ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO: "MEMORIES OF RUSSIA IN FLORENCE”

SIMAFRA AND "MOTHER-EARTH”

What are the points in common between classical and contemporary art? How are the traditional artistic techniques used today? Are there any points where they overlap?

Just to make an example, the works of Riccardo Prosperi - aka Simafra - an artist born among the workshops of Florentine craftsmen, illustrate a new relationship between the freedom of choice of the artistic material and the classical forms of image development.

The great Italian artists of the Renaissance also used contrasting colours in their works and gold backgrounds, and they studied nature in depth, focusing on the subject of their work. We can see that these methods are still being used now…

The project "ARTIGIANATO E PALAZZO: MEMORIES OF RUSSIA IN FLORENCE" is devoted to the presence of Russian culture in Tuscany, and particularly in Florence, through the centuries. Creating an image linked to Russia is not an easy task for a young Italian artist.

Riccardo Prosperi has chosen a number of “modern” materials for his project, such as cement, acrylic paints, polyurethane... It may be that a philosophical approach helped the artist to transform the image of the Russian mother - the matrioska - into a symbol of the source of all life, the planet Earth.

Prosperi develops the idea of the birth of humanity in a way that shows it inseparable from its roots, the earth on which a person lives and dies. The partly open spheres within which the observer sees the nucleus of the planet, reveal the multiform nature and the fragility of life. The artist depicts many models of the earth, in order to remind the viewer of the dangers that threaten our planet on account of our barbarous attitude. He reinforces the external image using the textures of malachite, a semi-precious gemstone mined in the Ural Mountains and very well-known in Russia. Gold is Simafra’s favourite material, however: when he applies it in sheets on the cement surface, it creates a unique sculptural relief, like incandescent lava vibrating on the surface of the Earth... As if, in the hands of the master, the entire planet could become a familiar, intimate story needing protective care and attention.

Without a doubt, Riccardo Prosperi has learned the techniques of Renaissance art, having grown up in an extraordinary, culture-imbued environment such as only Florence can offer. The classical traditions of the use of gold with paints, the perfect shape of the circle, the spherical momentum of a spiral and its proportions, all serve as basic building blocks for the artist to develop his ideas. His contemporary view of art is an immediate reflection of the most urgent problems of humanity: the fragility of our planet, the unpredictability of human life, the artistic approach to the expression of a subject, the subject of the work of art itself and its constant embellishment, whether it be classical or contemporary.

A Master who knows how to ply his art masterfully - who possesses the necessary skill to convey the meaning of a work of art to his spectator - does not contemplate any division between the academic and the contemporary approach to art.

Natalia Parenko Academy of Fine Arts of St. Petersburg