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ur country, Italy, is a land of wonders. But they should not be used as a smokescreen, behind which indolence, ignorance and neglect are free to run wild
LET BEAUTY NOT BE AN ALIBI
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“Ma signore, cosa mi domanda? Son veramente innamorato di questa bellissima lingua, la più bella del mondo. Ho bisogno soltanto di aprire bocca e involontariamente diventa il fonte di tutta l’armonia di quest’idioma celeste. Sì, caro signore, per me non c’è dubbio che gli angeli nel cielo parlano italiano.” In Thomas Mann’s Confessions of Felix Krull, confidence man, Italian is a celestial language and Italy the homeland of beauty. It is quite easy to fall in love with our country, our culture, our traditions. Yet, as in every Garden of Eden, insidious serpents lurk in our paradise: they are the malignant tempters that engender neglect, disorganisation, corruption and the “industry of ugliness” (ranging from ignorance to delinquency) that offend our eyes every day. Beauty can generate life, but it can also stifle it: this is the risk that we run when we emphasise only the sugar-coated surface of our culture. We must not forget that creativity and the culture of design can emerge and prosper only in a political, economic and social context that is stimulating and essentially nonconforming. A context that is nurtured by science, research, challenges, inspiration, and historically based on the highly evolved dialogue between clients, creative minds and artisans. This dialogue is not always relaxed, at times even confronta-
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tional, but it remains quite unique to this country, as the recently established foundation “Italia Patria della Bellezza” rightly affirms. At a moment in history when messages are easily trivialised, it takes a strong critical outlook and a compelling narrative to present Italy’s “well crafted beauty” as the outcome of a process that is cultivated by curiosity and competence. It means summoning an effective rhetorical power to relate the true heart of beauty, rather than its facile surrogate. This is what we seek to do in this magazine. Italian beauty must be comprehended, embraced and narrated with a competence that is not only evocative but also linguistic: to highlight genius as well as the work behind it, maturity as well as experimentation, growth as well as tradition. Falling in love with beauty is easy. But true love is always fertile, generative: it gives birth to something new, something that is bound to take us far. Unlike Narcissus, who is punished by the gods for falling in love with his own reflection, Pygmalion is rewarded by Aphrodite for being infatuated by the beauty of his work: because the love he feels for his statue is pure, expressing the sensitivity of the maker. While the Medusa kills by turning her beholders to stone, the enamoured gaze of the artisan/maker imbues his creation with the breath of life, which is generated by the authenticity of his inspiration and the skill and mastery of his execution. The gaze and the word: these are the true sources of love. But in order to preserve the power to arouse and merit love, to generate richness and awe, beauty must not be used as an alibi for indolence, ignorance and neglect. In order to be competitive, we need to be precise, punctual, and reliable; we must know how to relate the truth that surrounds us in a beautiful way. To advance from the evocative power of language to the triumph of action is the challenge we are now facing.
01/12/15 12:08