The graphic art collection of the Casabianca Museum

Casabianca is a small art museum in a tiny little town called Malo (VI) in the north-east of Italy. It is a testimonial to the artistic passion and the vision of an Italian art-collector called Giobatta Meneguzzo. The museum presents his collection of contemporary drawings, graphic-art and art-prints.

Meeting Giobatta Meneguzzo

I live in Schio (VI), a tiny town in the foothills of Alps mountains in the north-east of Italy. Malo is a few kilometres away from our home. Some months ago, our local cultural association organised a "Meet an artist" programme, under which we were supposed to visit the house of a local sculptor and talk to him about his art.

My friend Roberto came to pick me up and informed me that on the way, we will make a brief stop to pick up Giobatta, who is the artist's uncle. That was my introduction to the 89 years old Giobatta and to his collection of contemporary graphic art housed in Casabianca (literally "White house") museum in Malo.

Giobatta was kind enough to take me around his museum. Later, as we travelled to his nephew's house, we talked a little. This post is based on that meeting. It provides an introduction to the Casabianca museum and to Giobatta.

Brief introduction about Geobatta

Geobatta was born in 1928 in Priabona, a small fraction of Malo. He studied to become a geometra, someone who does surveys of terrains and projects civil buildings. His introduction to the world of graphic arts came through art books and art magazines such as the works of Skira and a magazine called "Domus". Fascinated by art, he started collecting graphic art and art prints in the 1960s and continued till 1990s.

The Casabianca museum was established in 1978. It is situated in a 400 years old building belonging to the Morandi Bonacossi family. Built around 1668, it is a compact solid looking building that used to be the "Montecio farming estate". At the same time, it has an aristocratic touch as shown by the high vaults, big halls and well made solid pillars.

Casabianca Art Collection

The graphic art and prints collected by Giobatta are very different from the usual art collections in museums - most of them are small in size, many of them apparently very simple and some of them can be defined as ordinary or even ugly. Most of the time, people collecting art focus on big art works with a strong good-looking visual impact. People collecting art as a financial investment go for famous artists. Museums do not have works of relatively lesser-known artists.

Giobatta's approach was different - he wanted to understand the artistic expression through his own appreciation of art. He looked for art which touched him instead of collecting famous works of famous artists. This means that looking at the art displayed in Casabianca museum, you can have a very personal and subjective view of art, without being influenced by the words of well-known art critics and hypes created by auction houses.

Even if you have been to different art museums around the world, Casabianca museum will surprise you. Most museums highlight the important art works of their collection, especially those of the famous artists. Casabianca is different - the art works are put in an apparently random way without highlighting those of the famous artists. The museum seems to tell you that you should not wait for someone else to tell you what is beautiful or what is important - look at the art through your own eyes and see which art and artists speak to your heart. Discover your personal view of significant art.

Not knowing which art works were by famous or important artists, was disorienting when I went around the Casabianca museum accompanied by Giobatta. The art works displayed here represent most of the important art movements from 1960s to 1990s including pop-art, kinetic-art, neo-realism, conceptual art, American graffiti, anachronism movement, minimal art and body art. Overall there are 1200 art-works of 700 artists exhibited in the museum.

Fred Licht, the curator of Peggy Guggenheim museum wrote about the art works displayed in Casabianca museum in 1992: "You can enter into a dialogue with artists like Beuys or Serra or Manzoni, more directly and more efficiently by looking at their small sized works, instead of their giant operas which overwhelm the observer and delay or complicate the direct communication with the artist ..."

The museum is popular with school children who come here to look at art and to discuss the different art movements and styles that have influenced visual arts and specially graphic-arts during the second half of 20th century.

It was a hurried visit for me, as we had to go for our group visit to the house of another artist. Still, the unorthodox approach chosen by Giobatta piqued my interest and I am hoping to go back there to look properly at the art works.

Conclusions

Casabianca museum is a private art collection. It focuses on graphic art of second half of the 20th century. I am sure that today it is possible to see many examples of the graphic-art through internet. Still looking directly at the art works instead of admiring them as images is a completely different experience.

It was a hurried visit to the Casabianca museum on that day. However, even in that short visit, I was intrigued by the ideas of Giobatta and his art collection.

When we admire art we focus on the artists and their artistic expressions. People discovering artists and running art galleries is another group of people that has received some attention. However, who are the persons who collect art and why do they do it? Meeting Giobatta raised this question in my mind.

I am planning to go back to Casabianca and look at its exhibits with a little bit more time. If you are visiting this part of north-east Italy around Vicenza and its province, perhaps you will also like to visit this unique museum.

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Butterfly Cho Cho San's tragic love story

Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly is among my favourites. It is the tragic story of a young Japanese girl's love for an American marine.

Recently I went to see a show about this opera. It was a multi-medial show by the Italian musicologist Fabio Sartorelli. It had stories, piano performances of music from the opera, old video-footage and live performance of some scenes by three young actors.

This post is about this show organised by Elia Dalla Costa cultural centre and held at the Civic Theater of Schio (VI, Italy).

Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly

"Madama Butterfly" was based on a French novel written by Pierre Loti in 1887. The opera was written by Italian writer and musician Giacomo Puccini around the turn of 19th century. It premiered as a two-act opera in 1904 in Milan but was heavily criticised. Later that year, Puccini rewrote it as a three-act opera, which became successful.

Operas are the theater of emotions in songs. The tone and the timbre of the voices of singer-actors such as tenor, soprano and mezzo soprano, determines their roles. Operas are a part of the Western classical music tradition.

This opera was based in the 19th century Japan. After centuries of isolation, Japan had opened to the west in 1854. As Western ships started arriving in Japan, their marines wanted the "women of pleasure", but Japan did not allow prostitution. So the women were sold as "temporary wives" to those marines.

Opera's heroine Cho Cho (Butterfly) is a 15 year old girl who becomes the temporary wife of an American marine called Pinkerton. She is naive and falls in love with the man she thinks is her husband. A month later, Pinkerton goes back to America telling Cho Cho that he will be back soon. Cho Cho gives birth to a boy and waits for her "husband". Finally after 3 years, Pinkerton returns but is accompanied by his American wife. Cho Cho commits suicide to facilitate that her son can go to America with his father.

This theme has been adapted also in innumerable Bollywood films such as "Ram Teri Ganga Maili", in which young innocent girls from villages or mountains fall for slick city guys.

Fabio Sartorelli

Fabio Sartorelli is a musicologist from Bologna university and had studied piano at Milan conservatory. He teaches at Como conservatory and Academy of Scala theater of Milan. He also gives talks and performances related to the lives, works and performances of music artists like Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Puccini, Stravinskij and Verdi.

Sartorelli's show

The show touched on Puccini's opera from different angles - from the ideas of racism and colonialism that form the context of the opera, to Giacomo Puccini as a person, and from the different versions of the story of Madam Butterfly written by other authors, to the emotional culmination of the opera when Cho Cho San commits suicide.

Sartorelli explained that in the initial version of the opera, Pinkerton did not appear in the final act and did not show any remorse about what had happened to Butterfly. No tenor wanted to play Pinkerton's role and the opera was heavily criticised. Thus Puccini changed this part of the opera.

The opera was written in a period when there was great public interest in the mysterious Japan that had opened its doors to the foreigners after many centuries. The earlier books about this story, not knowing how the Japanese people talked, had used the American black slaves as a model for expressing them linguistically.

On one hand, the opera showed Cho Cho as a Christian convert, which might have made it easier for the western audience to identify with her fate as an unfortunate woman. On another, the "woman" was actually a 15 year old child, also because in that epoch, exploitation of minors was not seen in the way we look at it today.

The show also touched on Puccini as a person, such as his love for cars, his travels to America, his fame in that country, and his money-making from advertising for pens and mouth-washes.

Three young actors from Piccolo Teatro of Milan (Francesca, Niccolo and Carlo) performed some scenes from the opera.

Sartorelli is an able communicator and a good piano player. He understands the stage, how to raise the tension and how to make people laugh. Though some of the issues touched upon in the show were serious - such as racism and the misrepresentation of cultures, Sartorelli treated them lightly, with wit and irony.

I loved the whole show and Sartorelli's skill in putting together so many different ways of looking at and understanding the opera, its history and the stories of persons linked with it.

Conclusions

For me a key reflection from this show was that we can look at the famous creative maestros like Giacomo Puccini in critical ways - to see them not as mythical figures but as human beings, with their weaknesses and warts, without diminishing in any way the recognition of their genius in creating amazing works of art.

It is also important to remember the context of those times when we criticise many of its specific aspects. Such an opera, if written today, would very likely be booed and forced to close down by protesters. For example, for much less, in recent times writers have been accused of cultural appropriation and made to pay a heavy price.

Loving operas written hundred or more years ago means learning to look at those artistic works from different angles and yet continue to be touched and moved by them.

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Those magnificent men on their flying machines

Many men have a special relationship with their motorcycles. For a long time, I could not get why they felt that way. I had ridden on motorbikes in my younger days and while I had loved the thrill of speed with the wind rushing past, I had not got hooked to that sensation. It all changed around a decade ago.

This post is a photo-essay about motorbikes and the guys who love them.

Introduction

In Italy, I live in Schio, in the foothills of Alps. Schio has a strong motorbike loving community and the Schio moto-club is almost one century old. We have regular motorbike rallies, of the vintage bikes and, of moto-cross with sport-bikes. Most of the pictures with this post are from two recent local motorbike events (Schio-Pasubio vintage motoraduno and Off-road moto-cross).

In the final part of this post, I also have a few pictures of motorbikes from India and Brazil.

A word about the title of this post.  Those magnificent men in their flying machines, was the title of a 1965 British film. If you have never seen this film, do look for it and watch it, it is wonderful. The film was about airplanes but it also fits this post.

From motorbike hater to lover

At the age when many men love motorbikes, I was content to read "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". I was convinced that riding a motorcycle was a surefire recipe for an accident. These ideas may have been linked to the death of a friend's brother in a motorcycle accident.

For a long time, I held on to those ideas. When my son became an adolescent and many boys of his age were going around on their motorbikes, I insisted that I would rather help him buy a used car than a motorcycle.

And then, after crossing fifty, when most men put away their bikes and opt for the safety of a car, I suddenly discovered my passion for motorcycles. I can't pinpoint the exact moment when it happened but suddenly I realized that I loved watching and dreaming about motorbikes.

Probably, horse-riding is similar to motorbike riding at some level? Like motorbikes, often cowboys have a special feeling for their horses. I am not sure what Freud would have to say about this, but I am sure that you can guess it!

My passion for motorbikes started with vintage bikes. I remember coming across an exhibition of vintage bikes some 7-8 years ago, and I was completely taken by them. Since then, whenever there is a rally of vintage motorcycles, I go there to look at and admire the old models of bikes.

There was a time when there were just two kinds of motorbikes - the ones for normal roads and the ones for rocky terrains and track-roads. Today there is a larger differentiation in the kinds of bikes such as custom-made, cruisers, choppers, rat bikes, bobbers, sport, naked, trike and sidecar. I am not sure about the differences between most of them.

The motocross bikes are lighter and have robust suspensions. Usually they do not have head-lights or direction-lights. At the motocross rallies, I day dream about flying in the air on my motorbike in my next incarnation.

Bikes for an election rally in India

In 2015-16, I lived in Guwahati (Assam, India). Not just Guwahati, the whole of the north-east of India has a very strong motorbike culture. One day in Muchkhowa, I had seen a big group of bikers doing an election campaign for BJP (image below).

During my medical college days in Delhi, Royal-en-field and Bullet were the dream-bikes of most guys. Today of course, they have much wider choice of bikes in India.

A Bike-dad from Brazil

The next couple of images are from Baja beach near Abaetetuba in Para state of Brazil. A guy with his son had come to beach on his bike. First I saw their bike while they were sitting at the beach.

A couple of hours later, as the sun was going down, I saw them going away. This picture of them (below) on the bike as they leave the beach, is one of my all time favourite images.

Conclusions

I hope that you have liked some random thoughts and pictures about motorbikes.

I had a lot of fun putting together the pictures for this post, as I could spend hours looking at old albums and reliving the thrill of those moments.

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A Zen Walk in the Golden Mountain

It was supposed to be a nostalgia trip but it ended in a wonderful zen walk. It was completely unexpected, so that made it even more enjoyable.

This post is about a walk in a forest and my understanding of a "Zen Walk".

If you are visiting the tiny but charming city of Schio, about 30 kms from the better known Vicenza in the north-east of Italy, you might want to visit this wonderful forest around the hills known as "Monti D'Oro" or the Golden Mountains!

Zen Walks

For me, a "Zen Walk" means a walk where I am focusing on where I am going and what surrounds me. From personal experience, I can say that a good zen walk can take you to a state of meditative bliss, it decreases your stress and makes you feel refreshed.

Normally when we walk, we are often lost in our thoughts, thinking or talking about other things and not really looking around us. On the other hand, the zen walks are characterized by mindfulness. However, it is difficult to ensure intense focus on something for a long period. Thus, it is important after some time, to change the objects of your attention.

Personally I find photography with a zoom lens, as a useful tool to help me focus on specific things in the surroundings. However, just clicking random pictures left and right, without stopping to focus on and think about, can become a distraction.

I hope that by looking at some of the images from this walk shown below, you can get a sense of what I mean by "mindfulness".

Discovering the forest of Golden Mountain

In Italy our home is in the tiny Alpine town of Schio, under the shadow of the imposing Pasubio mountain. A few km from our house is the tiny suburb of Torre Bel Vicino, where my wife used to go as a child to her maternal grandparents' home.

On one summer day we went to visit Torre Bel Vicino. After visiting that old town and listening to her childhood stories, I suggested that we should look for some place for lunch.

"Let's go to Trotta. As a child, I used to go there for eating out with my father", my wife suggested. That restaurant was famous for their "trotta" (trout) fish.

So we crossed the bridge over Leogra river and then took the Rillaro road. From here a narrow road goes up in the mountain-valley, called Valle dei Mercanti (Valley of the Merchants from the medieval days when mountain people came here to sell their wool). We went up this road, with a mountain stream on our left side and an occasional mountain house. We reached the end of this road but didn't find the "Trotta" restaurant.

The road ended at a small group of houses called Carolla. Beyond, we could see a path going along the hill. A tiny board informed that this was a bio-geological reserve area. Even though we were hungry, we decided to take a short walk along that path.

It was really quiet in the forest and we did not see any other person. With a tiny mountain stream running along the path, creating small waterfalls at every 5-10 meters, the only sound we could hear was of the running water.

As we ventured inside the forest, I was struck by the quantity of bright green moss, almost phosphorescent, on the rocks all around. This meant that there was a lot of humidity in the area, almost like in a tropical forest though we were in a temperate mountain zone. According to my wife, every time it rains upstream in the mountains, the tiny mountain stream running through the forest becomes a thundering torrent and thus the rocks get wet.

I felt as if we were in some magical place, the only human beings alive in an abandoned world.

The Zen Meditations

I want to share with you four images that represent the "Zen-ness" of this walk. Even now, many months after that walk, observing the details of these pictures brings back the feeling of joy and calmness, I had experienced during this walk.

(1) The sight of dead and decaying leaves floating on the still water: it made me think of the circle of life that goes on, passing through the trinity of creation, growth and destruction symbolized by the figures of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in the Indian mythology. At a more ecological level, it must have had a distinct bio-sphere with hundreds of life-forms that grew and lived in this place.

(2) The play of light and shadows, accompanied by the gentle sounds of the leaves moving in the breeze, insects buzzing around and the rich smells of the humid earth, flowers and leaves: It was like an intoxicating poem written by the wind and sun on the trees. It was as if the whole forest was alive, whispering to me.

(3) The gentle sound of water as it flowed around and carved the stones into round smooth pebbles: It was mesmerizing. It made me think about the briefness of life - nothing was static, everything moved and changed with the flow of the water, creases opening and closing on its silky surface. It also made me think about the continuity of life with those rocks that were gently caressed and shaped, their jagged edges smoothed over periods of years if not centuries or millenniums.

(4) Everything seemed so rich in colours and details: The different hues of the flowers, the blood red berries shining like red beacons, different shades of the moss, the diverse textures and colours of rocks telling stories about rivers and torrents that could arise suddenly - there was so much to look at.

For example, just look at the leaf fallen down over the rocks and observe the shapes and colours it carries. I can see pigs, flying eagles, standing bears and so much more in those shapes.

Conclusions

It was a short walk in the forest, but I loved it. I am curious about going back to explore "our moss forest", as I have started calling it. It is a protected nature-park and does not have many visitors, so it is particularly suitable for zen walks.

And I also want to explore the mountain stream better. Perhaps in the next spring, the forest will be different. I can't wait to find out!

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