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A MAGNIFICENT CATALOGUE FOR THE “LUCE D'ITALIA” EXHIBITION |
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In the publication which accompanies the sorrentine exhibition, are some magnificent reproductions of the works included in the exhibition, interesting in-depth studies on Silvestr Scedrin and his contemporay Russian artists and also comments by the Mayor of Sorrento, the President of the Sorrento Foundation, the person responsible for the Russian Foundation “Cherry Wood ” and the curator of the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg. |
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Catalogue cover for the Sorrento exhibition
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Those who visit the “Luce d’Italia”
exhibition on display at the “Villa Fazzoletti”
in Sorrento, apart from appreciating the magnificent
works by Silvestr Scedrin and his Russian
contemporaries, have the possibility of acquiring the
catalogue of the sorrentine exhibition.
In this catalogue – published by Palace
Edition – apart from illustrations of the masterpieces
housed in Sorrento, there are also interesting
in-depth studies on the russian painter Silvestr Scedrin
in Italy” (by Grigorij Goldovskij), “Italy
as seen by Silvestr Scedrin’s contemporaries” (by
Evghenija Petrova) and brief biographies of
twenty or more artists.
In the first part of the publication, are to be found the
comments of those responsible for the institutions that wished
to support the prestigious sorrentine exhibition.
The Mayor of Sorrento, Marco Fiorentino, for
example, wrote: “The Italian landscape and the
warm atmosphere of our town, come forth with vehemence from the
works of the Russian artists realised in the
1900s.
The views, the sea, the buildings and monuments, are represented
by the artists “en plein air”, with ecstatic
admiration.
The Italy mirrored by the Grand Tour
is a type of Arcadia, where the artists seek
the essence of beauty, the great heredity of classicity and the
revolutionary innovations of the renaissance.
It is a true myth for the romantics, that which the
author of “Jerusalem Liberated” saw as the
artist of antonomasia.
The exhibition which Sorrento
is honoured to accommodate, represents one of the best cultural
occasions organised by the Council and the Sorrento
Foundation.
It is an added reason to visit the city and also the
“villa Fiorentino”, a remarkable structure from an
architectural point of view, destined to become a centre for
exhibitions on an international level. Many
thanks to the Russian authorities who gave
their permission for this event, the associations, the
institutions and all those who have contributed to the execution
of this exhibition”.
The President of the Sorrento Foundation,
Gianluigi Aponte, also expressed the desire to define
his thoughts in the catologue, : “The intention of the
Sorrento Foundation was to participate with enthusiasm
in this exhibition dedicated to Scedrin
and his “travelling companions” because the initiative is well
placed within the objectives of this Foundation
and also because it demonstrates the potential of “Villa
Fiorentino” as a multi-expressive exhibition
centre.
Within this new form of collaboration between the public and
private members of the Foundation, prevails the
desire to organise few events but of a high standard and
strategic size. One of the essential elements of the cultural
programme of the Foundation, will be to create
exhibitions and other events inside the villa,
that may contribute to and improve the cultural proposal and
propagate the image of Sorrento around the
world.
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The coast and the Italy
as seen through the eyes of the Russian artists,
will surely act as a precious “visiting card” for
Sorrento, the Foundation and the
potential of “ Villa Fiorentino”.
In consideration of the art exhibition, Michail
Kusnirovic, the person responsible for the
Russian Foundation “Cherry Wood”, wished to state:
“Many events which take place during our lifetime without
having been programmed, do not happen purely by chance, but
thanks to a series of circumstances.
Even my paternal grandmother, like those of her generation,
was moved on hearing the melody of “Torna a
Surriento”. For some reason the memory of that
emotion is fixed in my mind, even if at the time neither of
us thought of ever returning to Sorrento.
We have simply never left it.
All Those charming names, lemons like melons, the panorama
of Vesuvius and of Capri
admired from Caruso’s terraces, and my
parents, endowed with the effects and confused by so much
beauty, went walking : on reaching the local cemetery, they
paused in front of the simple gaunt stones.
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Scedrin’s tomb as it was before the recent restoration agreed to by the Russian authorities |
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From the right hand wall jutted a stone which seemed to be
incomplete. And there, unwittingly, they read a name which
they recognised, written in latin: Silvestr Scedrin.
Both my mother and father, being natives of
Leningrad, frequent visitors to the Russian
Museum and therefore “experts on Scedrin”
were moved in a particular way by this episode from the
distant past; during their vacation.
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This year’s Cherry Wood is AN ENCOUNTER
WITH THE PAST, which everyone is free to interpret in
their own way ,but for us it meant renovating the artist’s
tomb in his second homeland.
I am still amazed at the path which events have taken:
from the interview granted by the Curator of the
Russian Museum, which brought to our attention
the fact that we weren’t the only ones to be involved.
We are also planning to loan the splendid works of the
founder of the Posillipo school for a
period of time, to their “historical homeland “ –
Sorrento.
This is how it all began.
And I am grateful to the Russian Museum,
and in particular to Vladimir Aleksandrovic
Gusev and Evghenija Nikolaevna Petrova;
to the Sorrento council, namely the
Mayor Marco Fiorentino, Mrs. Rossella Bezzecchi,
Nina Liola, Robertino Loretti and the
manager of the Federal Agency for their knowledge and
cinematography, Michail Efimovic Svydkoj and
all the “gardeners” of the “Cherry Wood”,
beginning with my mother Edit Iosifonova
Kuznirovic, for the realisation of the dream
that had been my grandmother’s. My father would have
been a happy man happy today.
And furthermore I am grateful to destiny (to that
remembered series of events) which has given me the
possibility of executing the idea, after much thought,
of transplanting the “Cherry Wood” in
the fertile soil of Sorrento, much
loved by us, by those who came before us and by those
who will come after us.
Now we can say that we will come back again.
Last – but certainly not least – the Curator of
the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg, Vladimir
Gusev, pointed out that: “Artists
become friends wherever they are independently of their
nationality, and amongst themselves they do not feel to
be foreign, in fact they only need to say “I’m an artist
too” – written in a letter by Silvestr Scedrin.
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| Details of one of the works in the exhibition at “villa Fiorentino” in Sorrento |
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He was born in the gel of St. Petersburg,
, far from the warmth of Sorrento, but
he didn’t live like a foreigner in Italy,
because he loved it from the first moment and remained
there to the end of his days.
He was no more a foreigner to the Italian
artists than he was to those who were
foreigners to art.
A short while after his death a simple fisherman said to
a Russian voyager who had come to
Sorrento to pay homage at the artist’s
tomb: “I loved him very much, more than my own son. He
was a very good person, who could forget his good works?
… he helped the poor, those who were unhappy; he
maintained entire families and often gave all that he
had to whoever asked him for help.
Today the Russian Museum pays homage to
the person who, during the course of his very short life
was able to do so much and shared his talent with such
generosity.
Today my friends, we share with you, that which belongs
to the Russian and Italian
cultures , by exhibiting all the works of
Scedrin which are part of our collection, all
that which for many years has been preserved and
continues to be preserved, generation after generation,
by the collaborators of the largest museum of
figurative Russian art in the world”.
Fabrizio Guastafierro
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