Saturday, April 9, 2011

Lost Art in Progress

 The Gazebo in the center of Rapallo is one of my very favorite places. It contains, and I have blogged about this before, a grand fresco celebrating the allegory of music. The bright colors are so magnetic and the painting style is a most attractive art nouveau with fits in the time frame of which it was painted in 1929. It used to be the center for live classical concerts where musicians would play inside the gazebo and the patrons would sit in chairs surrounding. I have always thought that the fresco was never protected enough always being naked in the elements and I was right. Damage to the frescoes by salt and moisture have taken it's tole.
Now the city has decided to make some improvements and do some restoring. First, with national treasures and UNISCO sites like Pompei actually falling down, I applaud the efforts of taking care of your monuments. That said, the scaffolding went up for one week and when it came down I was shocked to see that they had covered up at least 1/4th of the painting with plaster. Shock horror why!? To fill in the cracks but the artists original work is just gone. I'm sure and very good art restorer will attempt to put back the pieces but it will never be the same.
I'm just so glad that I have pictures of it from last summer PRE-plaster..for posterity that is.

2 comments:

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Your pictures are lovely. What a pity this has been damaged, though.

Cat Wisdom 101 said...

Just saw you on House Hunters and am so happy to see your dreams comes true. Our markets in New York aren't what they used to be and I love the flea markets in Paris but this one in Turin is inticing!