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| Venetian diary * |
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by Paolo Rizzi |
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| The first Sunday of September, 1996 |
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The studio window has been there for years. He used to open and close
it absently. Beyond it is a courtyard with a magnolia. One day however,
the gentle notes of Begin the beguine were drifting from the portable
radio. What happened? “I don’t even know myself” Ernani
Costantini now recalls, “I know that the moon appeared to me
from behind the leaves. And I jumped. It was as if it was I was looking
out of that enchanted window for the first time”. Art is like
that: a skipped heartbeat, a moment of estrangement, a spell in fact.
Ernani Costantini has tried, now that the years are marching on for
him as well, to remember: to pinpoint, that is, those unique moments.
He has done it, of course, using his accustomed tool of work: painting.
About thirty paintings have been created, each of which recalls something,
it aims, in other words, to re-capture that fragrance, that climate,
that magic moment which happened once and which he still conserves
inside himself. The dust of memories, nostalgia, modest little jolts
of happiness.
But are they just simple memories? This is where the
literary, we might say even visionary aspect comes into play. Ernani
has depicted the familiar ‘Campo dei Mori’ but at the
same time trying to identify with him who, over four centuries ago,
already an old man, passed by every evening as he made his way to
Madonna dell’Orto for prayers: Tintoretto. A sort of affectionate
complicity between the painter of today and the painter of yesterday. “I
think I catch a glimpse of him every now and again, furtively crossing
that campo…”. Or perhaps it is a poem which conjures
up a ghost all of a sudden, as in the case of Dora Markus, the Jewish
girl who Eugenio Montale sketched so commendably in his verses and
who now appears to Ernani as she sits, thoughtfully, enigmatically,
at the coffee bar, the view of Saint Mark’s and the lagoon
behind her. “Can you see, can you hear – Ernani inquires
of me – that woman’s thoughts? Her tragic premonitions?”. |
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| The fall of Zanni, 1987/88 |
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| The burning of La Fenice theatre, 1996 |
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It is a kind of ‘venetian diary’,
both discreet and very personal: made perhaps of nuances, as well as
flashes of light, and illumination. Memories are like that: they are
scattered over the carpet like miniscule fragments of gold. Who picks
them up? A lady on her box at La Fenice theatre is listening to music
by Brahms. She appears with her delicate and refined elegance in the
semidarkness, like a character from an eighteenth century locket. Ernani
has also done a painting of the terrible fire
which destroyed the theatre; but he focused on this mysterious,
emblematic lady listening to Brahms. Who knows? Maybe it happened one
evening ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. That intent face remained
in the artist’s subconscious;
then it emerged, taking shape in the painting. It remains a ghost however. “The
thrill of a memory which might not even be a memory”, whispers
Ernani. The surroundings, the setting, the place (and how could it
not be?) is Venice: Ernani’s city. In this intimate diary, he
sometimes portrays it directly, also in its most striking moments,
such as the procession of the Historic Regatta, other times in an oblique
way, almost personal, and hidden. In the large painting of the ‘Zanni’ Venice
does not even appear. But the loss of that character, so emblematic
of the Commedia dell’Arte symbolises (of course!) another loss:
that of a culture, a civilisation, perhaps the loss of what was once
the very essence of being Venetian. |
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| Brahms at La Fenice theatre, 1996 |
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| Canal Grande with Rialto bridge, 1996 |
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There is always something poignant about
Ernani’s Venices. They pulsate and rejoice in the air and light,
but at the same time, they feel, paradoxically, like strangers. How
can I put it? Like foreigners.This Venetian Diary confirms an idea
which we have always had but which was difficult to bring out into
the open, to specify. Ernani is a Venetian painter up to a point. His
heart leads him straight to the heart of the city so beloved by him
(which he has loved and lived in); but his sensibility, and his culture
lead him elsewhere. Don’t you see the tones of his paintings?
Those
combinations of green and red hues which come from the North and appear
almost to reject the basic principles of the Tiziano school? The Canal
Grande from Palazzo Cavalli or the Campo San Polo itself are enveloped
in an atmosphere which recalls echoes of symbolism/secessionism, if
not the sharp algors of painters from Hamburg and Stockholm. A
mood made of timbres rather than tones. On what does it depend? I
suggest: on the very culture of Ernani, on his familiarity with foreign
literature, his acquaintance with museums, his love of poets like
Rimbaud, Verlaine, Maeterlinck, or even Eliot. |
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Furthermore: who said that the Giorgione-Tiziano
line is the true exponent of Venetian artistic culture? Ernani is part
of the same clan as Tintoretto. “In my opinion, the real treasure
trove of painting is the School of San Rocco”, he says.
He should
know: the dramatic, sometimes spectral, ‘luminism’ of Tintoretto
represents the other line, although a minor one, of Venetian painting. Beyond are El Greco and maybe Goya, Munch and perhaps Ensor. The circle
gets wider. It is not by chance, that Ernani modestly refers to Giacomo
Favretto only by his initial.
Who has never paused to observe the crowd
who climb up and down Rialto bridge? Ernani painted the scene with
a joyful manner and in brilliant colour. However, funnily enough, the
association which occurred to him does not regard Carlo Goldoni nor
Guglielmo Ciardi, but in fact Eliot. In The Waste Land the poet speaks
of London Bridge while quoting Dante. The indifferent crowd is such “that
I ne’er would have believed / that ever Death so many had undone”.
Those tourists who pass through Rialto become something else.
That is what true painting is like. In fact: a true Venetian cannot be anything
else: open to the world, beyond any impossible Venetian nostalgia. |
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| On the Rialto Bridge, 1988 |
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Paolo Rizzi
1996 |
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*^ From the catalogue
of the exhibition Venetian diary |
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