Collodi, a painted village
1) Il sogno di Collodi di Gioxe de Micheli
2) Pinocchio sogna gli zecchini d'oro dondolati dal vento: zin, zin, zin.... di Roberto Giovannelli
3) Pinocchio ovvero il lungo viaggio dell'uomo di Andrea Granchi
4) Pinocchio con il Grillo Parlante di Mario Madiai
5) Pinocchio, Alidoro, il Pescecane .... di Antonio Possenti
6) Il carro dell'Omino di burro di Marco Salerni
Art and culture live on in Collodi
The encounter between Pinocchio and art has given Collodi’s masterpiece further substance, and for the last hundred and twenty years has made a major contribution to the success of the story in every language and culture all over the world.
The writer Carlo Collodi, open to cultural stimuli from Europe and beyond while profoundly rooted in his own land and language, exploited this quality in a highly individual and original way. Similarly he drew upon literary devices of every kind, regenerating them through artful parody. The wealth of Collodi’s repertory of content and form, the combination of rigour and the extreme freedom deriving from expressive truth, are undoubtedly among the reasons for the universal success of Pinocchio. The representation of the work in the collective imagination has consistently emerged through illustrations of the text, painting, sculpture, music and every other possible art form.
From its very origins in the shape of the Competition for the Monument to Pinocchio – which gave rise to the Pinocchio Park in Collodi – the Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi has always favoured the figurative arts as a universal means for communicating the manifold suggestions and interpretations generated by the Adventures. Collodi itself, as the symbolic source of Lorenzini’s literary inspiration, as a treasure-chest of art and culture, is the elect site of the cultural action of the Foundation that operates all over Italy and the rest of the world to promote the literary and educational merits of Collodi’s work and in general of the culture of childhood and early adolescence. It came naturally to think of a painting that all could see, to allow the village of Collodi to be read in a literary sense by its inhabitants and the numerous tourists that visit it every year. For Pinocchio: painted walls in Collodi, is intended as a tribute to the over eight million grown-ups and children who have visited Collodi since the opening of the Pinocchio Park, in the hope of giving a further boost to the generation of a virtuous cycle that can focus the various sensibilities – individual and institutional – on the goal of the Polycentric Collodi-Pinocchio Theme Park, and of "Collodi, the European capital of childhood”. Sincere thanks are due to Sviluppo Turistico Collodi s.r.l., to the Pescia Town Council, to the Collodi village Committee, to the Associazione Collodinsieme, to the owners of the houses who allowed their walls to be painted, to those who, with great sensitivity, have purchased some of them, to the members of the jury and the artistic management whose labours have been to such effect, and to the Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca which has supported the initiative. Finally, very special and particularly heartfelt thanks to the six artists who enthusiastically welcomed this idea, committing themselves to it with supreme skill and authentic inspiration, creating six beautiful works that are shining evidence of how art continues to be a supreme vehicle of cultural growth that no-one can do without.
Making Collodi into a painted village: a commitment achieved with enthusiasm
Collodi, one of the symbolic sites of the imagination of children and ex-children the world over, a village in Tuscany capable of expressing values at once ancient and utterly modern through Pinocchio, Lorenzino’s wooden puppet, the hero of the Adventures that is the book most widely printed and translated in the world, after the major religious books. The intact beauty of the hamlet of Collodi Castello, a cascade of houses that appears to be borne up by Villa Garzoni, with the grounds of the latter offering a unique example of the Italian garden, the Pinocchio Park, a site that evokes the literary world through art, architecture, greenery and entertainment: these are the aspects that have transformed Collodi into a site of tourism as well as culture.
All this passes through the village clustered around the river, a village that still has strong links with its paper industry past, and which to the eyes of Italian and foreign visitors appears somewhat unconnected with the cultural and tourist aspects of the ancient hamlet, the Garzoni complex and the Pinocchio Park. This is why it seemed imperative to find an innovative way of enhancing the cultural and tourist image of the village of Collodi. The idea of getting artists of standing to execute large-scale paintings on the walls of the houses appeared to be an ideal and original way of achieving this, an approach not strictly linked to the mural painting tradition, but rather with a view to transforming Collodi into an “open-air art gallery”. The original idea was conceived by the then Chairman of Sviluppo Turistico Collodi s.r.l., Giovanni Bianchi, after which the initiative - For Pinocchio: painted walls in Collodi - was taken up by the Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi, with the immediate enthusiastic support of the Pescia Town Council, the Collodi village Committee and the Associazione Collodinsieme. Together they set up an Organising Committee which appointed Sviluppo Turistico Collodi S.r.l. to take over the management of the initiative, including the financial aspect, which was far from insignificant and benefited from contributions and acquisitions which are fully dealt with on this website.
From the very start, from the first research carried out in other “painted sites” in Italy that have like Collodi benefited from the experience of the Varese art critic Renato Valerio, it became clear that this initiative could raise the image and the symbolic value of Collodi to various levels of perception. Painted walls in Collodi is designed to foster the values of the location, to significantly enhance the affection it is held in by its own inhabitants and the attention of the over 200,000 tourists that visit it every year, and to meet the expectations of the world of culture, of the public bodies and of all the well-wishers who want Collodi to assume the role of "European centre for childhood” , through the creation of the Polycentric Collodi-Pinocchio Theme Park ands its most innovative element, the Park of the Friends of Pinocchio. Sviluppo Turistico Collodi s.r.l. accepted the commission from the Promoting Committee to materialise this important assignment, embracing it within the objectives that have guided its work for the last 50 years, promoting the appeal of Collodi through projects ranging from the Osteria del Gambero Rosso restaurant to tourist services inside the Pinocchio Park and the recently opened Grillo Parlante space for conferences and performances, following the guidelines of the owner body, the Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi.
The result of the first and most significant lot of works installed in Collodi is now there for all to see, and offers high hopes for the continuation of the initiative in the other square, Piazza Ubaldo Ciumei and from there as far as the Ponte all'Abate, thus creating a fantastic itinerary leading into the “Land of the Fairy Tale”.
This dream can become reality, if the initiative succeeds in acquiring further concrete support, especially from local bodies and associations, alongside that which has already been forthcoming from various illuminated and sensitive private citizens, which to date has only partially met the significant economic commitment involved in this first difficult phase, enthusiastically sustained by Sviluppo Turistico Collodi s.r.l.
- Utility:
Stamp