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09/11/2022
THE THINGS THAT MATTER
View from Govone, a misty autumn morning in 2022.
A ten-minute car ride from our new home is the Castello Reale di Govone, which lies in the Roero region of the province of Cuneo in Piedmont. We have been here several times and in fact, the first time I visited the castle in 2016 it was under refurbishment, and I had a private tour of it by the custodian thanks to a kind introduction by a family member. Since then, the work has been completed and it is open to the public. I returned to see it twice in the last few weeks. It truly has a hold on me.
The south façade of Castello Reale di Govone
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Standing in front of the south façade of this stately mansion museum, you get vast views of the Tanaro valley as well as the English-style park featuring centuries-old horse chestnuts, oaks and plane trees emerging from a carpet of tassel hyacinths and periwinkles in the late winter and sun’s eye tulips in the spring, and a hanging garden with flowerbeds, fountains, and fruit trees as well as the separate rose garden with dozens of old rose varieties bring great joy to locals and tourists alike. Mentioned in a bill of sale dated 989, the residence was renovated in the 18th century into a stately mansion as a hunting residence of the royal family, the property has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1997. It is famed for its Chinese wallpapers dating back to the 1700s and which decorate the entire walls of four rooms of the princesses’ apartments. Another clear evidence of European interest in the East and its culture as this ornamental wallpaper represents the production processes of major sources of wealth in China at the time: silk, tea, porcelain, and rice. To me, what is equally mind-blowing are the decadent tromp-l’œil frescos which represent the tragic mythological legend of Niobe and sprawl across rooms of this fairy castle. You really do want to pull up a chair and sit down to feast your eyes on it but there is no such provision for visitors.
Details of Chinese wallpapers
A sneak preview of the tromp-l’œil frescos
Spazio.Con.Me: Knowledge and Memory Documentation Centre
It is also home to “Spazio.Con.Me: Knowledge and Memory Documentation Centre” described as a place to preserve traces of Creativamente Roero; a venue that is dedicated to celebrating the activities and artworks created in the area. Although I can get by on my intermediate Italian, I find that whenever I see an information board in English, I am drawn to it. Every so often this makes it harder for me to understand the information being conveyed as most of the texts are literally translated from Italian and don’t have the same meaning in English. In fact, badly translated English texts tend to confuse me more than texts written in Italian – which I seem to have better grasp of most of the time. So, if you are a tourist in Italy, my advice is that you don’t solely rely on information in English as most is poorly translated. In any case, the whole idea of travelling or living in another place is to open your mind to another culture, another language, another way of thinking. When in Rome, do as the Romans do… eh!
When I tell Italians that I moved here from England they express great appreciation for British institutions, especially ones in the arts and culture sector. Though I must say, as someone coming from England I am amazed by the quantity and quality of spaces, foundations, initiatives, and projects dedicated to the arts in Italy. British art institutions have (or maybe, had) a great reputation for exhibition curation, innovation, and investment in the arts, but I think it’s mostly due to their successful marketing in the international arena. If you are looking for substance, the Italians have it. And since the great effort for digitalisation which gained momentum partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more initiatives are accessible online. From what I have observed so far, Italy is enjoying a true revival as one of the strongest and most innovative facilitators of arts and culture initiatives; they just need good translators.
For example, above is a wonderful work by Luisa Valentini titled "Red Feather" but the information provided about this installation (which was casually placed on a chair) is so badly translated that none of it makes any sense. Even the gender of the artist is translated incorrectly.
I don't mean to upset or offend anyone but paying attention to detail is important. Even more so, when you have millions of tourists visiting your art institutions every year. If you are putting your logo on printed materials, you have to make sure it is clear and well-written/translated. It is a matter of reputation.
In fact, for some years now many of the purpose-built galleries and museums have failed to enthuse me. They are all the same, cubic, sterile series of rooms painted, organised, and lit in a certain way. What is the difference between an IKEA superstore and a contemporary art museum designed by a contemporary architect?
The dominant form of curation in Italy seems to be using any space to exhibit the work, be it an abandoned church, a metal factory, or a stately home. Art, after all, belongs everywhere and anywhere. And that’s special. Let’s face it, Italy is a work of art, it is an open-air museum. Art doesn’t need to be solely contained in purpose-built buildings. That is why millions of people flock to this beautiful and illustrious country every year.
However, appropriate representation is central to getting funding and being able to introduce a specific artist’s work to a wider international audience, perhaps with exhibitions abroad. If the mode of representation is outdated, then the artwork also looks outdated. That is also why we wrap even the most pleasing of presents in visually appealing packaging. Now though, more than ever, that packaging must be as ecologically sustainable as it is aesthetic. Following curatorial developments and technology is important. Art for art’s sake is no longer on anyone’s agenda. And if it is, it should not be. For sure, it is the only thing that means nothing to me.
All this brings me to the late Francesco Paula Palumbo’s exhibition which takes up the ground floor of Castello Reale di Govone and where I also had the chance to meet his son and the curator of this exhibition, Claudio Palumbo. Born in 1917, F. P. Palumbo moved from Taranto (a coastal city in Apulio in the south of Italy) to Turin in 1921. Raised by his widowed mother, he attended school until the age of 11 and began to work as an apprentice in the mechanical and metallurgical industry of Borgo San Paolo in Turin. A man from a modest background, Palumbo worked in this industry until retirement age. It was his brother Simone, a painter and sculptor who had long graduated from the prestigious Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin and took him under his wing and taught him drawing upon his return to Turin in 1968.
Francesco Paula Palumbo (1917-2008) at home in his studio.
Going back to the tumultuous pre-war years, from 1936 to 1939, Palumbo carried out his military service in the Italian navy. In 1940 he was recalled to the navy and in November of the same year, he witnessed the Anglo-American air attack at the military port of Taranto. After a brief period of leave in Turin, he was once again recalled to arms in 1943. Soon after, he was captured and imprisoned mainly under American control near Algiers and Oran in North Africa. He stood out for his handiness and creative skills and came back to Italy with them when in 1944 he indirectly participated in the Battle of Monte Cassino, a series of four assaults made by the Allies against German forces in Italy.
In 1945, when the war ended, he was offered the rank of commander in the 8th Army, but he opted out and emigrated to London to put his skills at the service of the United Kingdom. Though soon after in 1946 he returned to Turin with his fiancée and got married the same year. For a short period, he worked in the family business that manufactured ballpoint pens and later took back employment in a metalworking factory from which he retired in 1977 at age 60. In my opinion, the paintings he worked on soon after his retirement are among his best.
Scattered branches, 1976, oil on canvas, 70x60 cm
It is hard to write about a man who fought on the side of the Axis powers after having spent twenty-one years of my life in an Allied power country. But as some say, you live and learn. In an interview with La Stampa on 23 February 1973, Francesco Paula Palumbo stated, “I was a prisoner of the English in Algeria at camp 211. I did not know what to do. I found colours and brushes. Allied soldiers bought the paintings in exchange of cigarettes. They asked me for more and I continued, improving my style, I became more confident… Painting reminded me of the sad period of imprisonment.”
The past and the present are one and the same in the sense that they are both ever-changing. A highly intriguing article on the ever-changing nature of the past which can help to understand the “ménage-à-trois” between money, art and politics can be read here.
Inflicted with psychophysical exhaustion, Francesco turned his attention to painting as a form of therapy. Perhaps in part to forget about the war and time spent in imprisonment. At first his interest was focused on drawing in pencil and pastels to teach his children but in the early 1970s he realised that he was a capable painter and decided to showcase his work in painting competitions. The exhibition at Castello Reale di Govone exhibits 29 works, and numerous achievement certificates and awards placed behind glass – which from a curatorial point of view is a poor choice because to photograph them you need lighting equipment. One of these certificates of recognition is dated 13 May 1990 and reads: “The International Artistic and Literary Academy/The Town of Boretto and its twin association London Evening / Great Anglo-Italian Exhibition of artistic and literary works of foreign and Italian authors, on the occasion of the assignment of the coat of arms of the City of London, conferred on Palumbo Francesco, first prize and honorary citizen to the merit of international culture.”
First fruits, 1977, oil on canvas, 80x60cm
Considering the historical relationship between Francesco Paula Palumbo and the UK, I find it strange that I wouldn’t have known about his art unless I came to Italy and saw his work. If you look him up on Google, the only English language information is on Saatchi Art with 19 of his paintings (he produced over 100 paintings) priced as if they are cattle. They don’t call it `the art market` for no reason. It truly is a market and possibly one of the dirtiest, along with banking and the arms trade. And what a shame for a man who valued his art more than money during his lifetime.
To directly quote from an exhibition brochure diligently put together and translated into several languages, “The way in which he presented his paintings to potential buyers who came to visit him in his studio was also peculiar and well planned: he first showed them the landscape paintings which he considered of lower quality [with which I completely agree and in fact, this really shows he was an honest assessor of his own work]; afterwards he proceeded with a crescendo of better and larger works, gradually surprising visitors, so much so that they mostly wanted to buy the latest paintings, but feeling the price, they fell back on buying the first ones. My father claimed that it was a technique to sell less important works… In fact, he had no intention of selling the paintings he considered to be the best and most representative of his style, as he considered them unique…”
Above: Poppies, 1979, oil on canvas, 50x60 cm
Below: The first gallery, where you can purchase reproductions of Francesco Paula Palumbo's work in different media and also sign the visitors' book.
Palumbo’s Golden Age spans from 1973 to 1983, a decade of true artistic and painterly endeavour. And in this exhibition extending four rooms of the Castello Reale di Govone, includes some of his masterpieces. You catch glimpses of an intersection between Impressionism and Surrealism. I do wish there were some preliminary sketches of his work to see. There is a sense of great artistic preservation with everything framed under glass and spotlights directed at the paintings and the rewards. Some seemingly more deserving of light than others, a calculated effort to guide the visitor to the “better” pieces. A “nannying” approach to teaching art. Having said that, the work is brilliant, especially the still lives painted from imagination.
Above: Pears, 1974, oil on canvas, 50x60 cm
Exhibition view (above and below)
Another interesting detail is that each of the frames was designed specifically for its painting by F. P. Palumbo. They are classical but they compliment his more modern, younger than his years brushstroke. It is this dichotomy, the togetherness of things that shouldn’t look good together that makes it look so good. The dull and the vibrant, the light and the dark. And I think the way to exhibit and curate Francesco Paula Palumbo’s work should not be in the traditional style, i.e., mark the wall, hang the painting, box some rewards and trophies in plexiglass, and direct some spotlights. Most exhibitions I have seen so far in Italy are curatorially weak and messy. As I said I am not a fan of contemporary exhibition spaces, but neither am I of haphazard outdatedness. Times have changed, we are no longer in the 1990s. When I go to an artist’s exhibition I want to breathe in their world, I want to be enveloped by it. Thus, my perspective – as I mentioned in the beginning in general – is that a more contemporary outlook, a fresher, clearer vision is required to carry any great artist’s work into future.
A catalogue of his work titled, “Percorso antologico del Maestro Francesco Paula Palumbo” (The anthological path of Master Francesco Paula Palumbo (a title that sounds almost pretentious in translation, but I am sure it is not meant that way) was published in 2020 but it is only available in Italian and thus, only accessible to those fluent in Italian.
The endeavour to make Italy more accessible to the international arena is underway, but there is still a lot of work to be done, especially in the arts. Though, of course, many may disagree with me on this. They may say, “The Anglophones don’t need to translate their language for others to engage with it, so why should we?” And that’s right.
I think there should be a greater effort in the Anglosphere to translate texts – especially art and gallery catalogues – of all sorts into other languages (and not just European ones). After all, you can only claim to be multicultural if you are multilingual. On the other hand, perpetuating wrongdoing favours no one.
And, perhaps in a world where there is so much greater injustice, where there is a mountain of other serious and pressing concerns, what I have written here doesn’t matter to anyone in the slightest.
To me, everything matters. Harmony and suffering; joy and anguish; wealth and poverty; intellect and ignorance; truth and falsehood; real and abstract; obeyance and unrest; yearning and abandon. A song is yet to be sung for this human condition.
Homage to Woman, 1987, oil on canvas, 50x60 cm
N.B.: Francesco Paulo Palumbo Al Castello Reale di Govone will be open until 13 November 2022. If you miss it, you can see a smaller exhibition of his works at the Chiesa dello Spirito Santo in Govone from 19th November to 18th December. Who knows… And maybe one day there will be a retrospective organised by his captors.
Grazie mille a Claudio Palumbo… for giving me permission to share images of his father Francesco Paula Palumbo’s paintings on Live The Questions Now.
Photo copyrights H. Eagle.
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