EMILIA ROMAGNA AND THE GROUP OF ARTISTS

Emilia Romagna boasts a large list of personalities who have contributed in an extraordinary way to the whole world and when you discover that some of them were born a few kilometers from your small country town it is certainly a factor of pride; today we discover the group of artists from Emilia Romagna who have given a new light to the art world.

In the music sector the first ones that are usually remembered are Giuseppe Verdi Info events and Luciano Pavarotti Info house Pavarotti whose size is not scratched and it seems instead that time keeps the same magic that in listening to Verdi’s works or the ‘Nessun dorma’ even 100 times in a row, yes have goose bumps always and everywhere.

We remain for a moment in Emilia, specifically in the province of Parma, because I want to mention two artists of the highest caliber who have been able to talk about them all over the world; the first is the conductor Arturo Toscanini, a man who is always ready with a wand in his hand both to direct the perfect symphony, but also to line up who was out of tune, he never allowed anyone to trample his opinion, it was the first conductor to become a successful star in the world of the media for directing the NBC Symphony Orchestra of New York, through his music he fought against fascism and Nazism and this attracting the respect of characters from the caliber of Albert Einstein.  Info house Toscanini

Another character, this time from the world of writing, very influential during the 20th century was Giovannino Guareschi who became one of the most sold Italian writers in the world, as well as the most translated Italian writer ever; the fruit of his best known pen is undoubtedly Don Camillo and Peppone who through his films tells the cross-section of a village of the lower Po valley during times where many ideologies were born and everyone wanted to be right, but in the end who won were common sense as well as the friendship that sometimes needs to have an antagonist to survive; Guareschi has also directed the documentary ‘La rabbia’ together with another great artist of this land, Pier Paolo Pasolini, where the two give their personal interpretation of what was happening in the world. Info museum

We continue with two artists from the almost surreal genius of the province of Reggio Emilia, who have decided to look at the world in their own way.

Cesare Zavattini was a theorist and a prominent figure in Italian Neorealism, collaborating with Vittorio de Sica on numerous films that marked a genre of the cinematographic world that showed Italy for what it was, between the grotesque and the survival, it finds itself living the world with comrades of the caliber of Bartolucci the poet, another great Emilian, and Chaplin who fascinates Zavattini with his unique imagery and who still today can describe an alienated world making us smile, he contributed when he was born the Italian publishing from Bompiani to Rizzoli, finally Zavattini collaborated in post-revolutionary Cuba for the birth of new national cinema. Info fondation Zavattini

 

 

 

Who through a decidedly personal vision has contributed to the world of art is Antonio Ligabue with his Naif paintings so he still speaks of him and of that eccentricity that often has placed him alongside the theme of Madness, but here of crazy people you can meet many and not because they have decided to be, but because life is bizarre and each of us decides how to deal with it and with what style to look at the world. Info house Ligabue

 

 

 

 

The mentioned Bertolucci is divided into two figures, the poet Attilio as well as a translator at the beginning of the last century and a great intellectual, then his son and director Bernardo who contributes to the world of cinema with films like ‘Novecento’ and ‘Ultimo tango a Parigi’ with a realist power and on the verge of censorship, perhaps because daring was the only key to open those doors closed by bigotry.

 

 

 

If we talk about Bolognese artists it is necessary to talk about Pier Paolo Pasolini which was all what the world of culture can conceive and has left significant testimonies of his opinion through films, paintings, interviews and articles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Ferrara we remember another director, Michelangelo Antonioni, who made his films an instrument to rebel against consumerism and the middle class, although he himself was of bourgeois extraction.

From Romagna we mention two great artists; Tonino Guerra and Federico Fellini.

Antonio (Tonino) Guerra was an Italian poet, writer and screenwriter, his life like that of many others is marked by the war that takes him to an internment camp in Germany and together with other Romagnolians he understands the meaning of writing in dialect for to remind the home of those who had been forced to abandon it, his country Santarcangelo di Romagna opened a museum to celebrate him. Info museum Guerra

 

 

 

 

If you say Rimini you say Fellini, one of the most influential filmmakers in the film industry in Italy and abroad, has been able to interpret his world and give it to us through his films that they used to tell true stories and experienced first-hand with that touch of cruel reality and magical fantasy.

 

 

 

 

All the artists mentioned had a gift and the generosity of wanting to share it with the rest of us, they came into play through a stubborn vision as only the land of Emilia Romagna can be, a land that has always found itself in between to the exchange of things and ideas and all this wealth has been transformed into poetry, music, painting, opera, film, it was a lyrical voice and powerful thought, a well-acted joke and a creepy background.