GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY - COLLECTIONS - ROOM OF PAESAGGI FIORENTINI A walk in the gold of Florence

Flavio Bassi

Paesaggi fiorentini

PHOTOGRAPHS

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Flavio Galleries

presents

an album of

Flavio Bassi

Florence is the city of light, of reflexions and of colors.
Perhaps Art put itself in relation with this, maybe unconsciously a symbiosis between human constructions and natural landscapes established; ones enriched others and vice versa with results that one could obtain perhaps only here.

Transparencies, shades, shapes: I would want nothing else inside my photographs of Florence.
I don’t search for images of a perfect unreal world, but for particulars of an existing tangible and simple reality, live model of ideas - and yet sometimes so far.

Flavio Bassi

Paesaggi fiorentini

We thanks:

The City of Florence

The Dreams

The Projects

The Buildings

Photographs: F. Bassi, 1989 - 1998

Texts: F. Bassi, 2005

Graphics: F. Bassi, 2008

GIARDINO DELLE ROSE

A garden can be an emotion, can create an atmosphere. Light sun rays crossed a rose in that day of May.. I bent down to see through it the profile of city.. and the most loved image of "Paesaggi fiorentini" has come into being. An unique symbol.

PIAZZALE MICHELANGELO

We don't forget certain moments. In that moment I were immersed, astonished, in the coloured and limitless space of Piazzale Michelangelo; the sun of spring was an indescribable pleasure. Some new leaves, of clear and brilliant green colour, were resplendent as bright lights. I searched to see their transparency, and a painting appeared on the background..

GALLUZZO

I care about this image because it is one of the firsts I shot with a complete photographic camera. A visit to a monastery with parents, a bit of tedium.. and a window opened. That window flied over a dream. That dream always accompanies me, and today it has become project.

ARCHI CONCENTRICI

Shapes which we can obtain with stone always fascinated me. Magnetized by regularity of vasarian arches, by Arno's light which gradates, and by pavement's roundnesses polished by time: here I am at sunrise with tripod to fix this image. Later on that pavement was flattened as a billiard by a certain idea of modernity, and I dislike a little.

CENTRO

It was a particularly limpid day. Sky presented the deep and full azure blue so classic in imagination as to seem artificial, and yet it was real. Suddenly I am touched by unusual sun rays: they looked like being made by liquid silver, and they came where sun was not..

LUNGARNO II

Lungarni appear to me as charming and pictorial environments. In gray days they wrap up thoughts in reflected light; in sun days, instead, they turn on themselves and become proper light sources. In that spring summery day I had in front of me a luminous orange, white and green space, dotted with red small spotlights: this is called "happiness", this is called "home"!

COLORI DEL POMERIGGIO

Some buildings appear soft, even if they are made in stone. As otherwise to define what I saw? Shapes were drawings approached one to each other with research and instinctive harmony, colours were gradations from tone to tone mixed with palette, atmosphere was of peace, and space was open everywhere. Maybe in that afternoon I found Architecture.

COLORI DEL TRAMONTO

Looking at sun in sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo is every time an event. We feel crossed by warm light while freshest hours come, and this is always a pleasing refreshment which gives energy. That evening was pasty: sky wanted to make us feel its presence. They are exactly the moments in which particles of air and of vapour receive - and diffuse - the last colours of today, which make you imagine tomorrow.

OMBRA

In sculptures, I see the research of creating a shape where it wasn't. A real and complete shape-in-space: maybe sculpture is the art which, more than each others, permits to talk with space, to set it in motion or in quiet with few volumes of drawed and moulded matter. And if sculpture is also space, space is also light, and light is also shadow..

STATUA DEGLI UFFIZI COLORATA DAL SOLE

Certain phenomenons make me stop to look them. That May's sunset wanted exactly to make itself be noticed: what it touched became pure orange, matter without body made of coloured brilliant light. Quickly I searched to frame the statue which I found in front of me: it was stone and yet it was a sun. After few instants day has gone together with colours; but "that" day is what I like to design.

TRAMONTO

In May, sun hides itself exactly in the centre of Ponte Vecchio, exploiting Arno's line as a route to aerial space. I tried and tried again for several days to represent those moments, in which our star appears as matter of fused fire - just leaned on the earth and on the water.. it is difficult to stop the sun! This fantastic image appeared, with miracolous colours.

SPICCHIO DI LUNA

A day like many others. After an afternoon spent to search for sun, I go towards home thinking about nothing. Street is narrow and rather dark, by then in the evening. Don't know why but I lift eyes.. and suddenly she appears, fine and brilliant, as she called me! So I thought that it's fine, sometimes, to discover what we forgot; as water, light, and moon.

PANORAMA COLORATO DAL SOLE DOPO LA PIOGGIA

Gray days can bring with them the most brilliant light. That day clouds were full but even light, and air was in movement - that movement which recalls the Earth which flies in space. At the afternoon's end some sun rays: wet earth shines as gold. A run towards hill, time for two shots only.. and the houses of light created a panorama.

SPETTACOLO

A point from which we see the space. A space builded by mankind, where buildings are words which go beyond the builded: town, its shapes, its air, appear as a completion of nature which makes the whole more precious; and that dome is the territory which condenses and look towards sky. In this point I return always, to look far away, and to feel universe.

LUNGARNO

Evidently this town has been founded thinking about its inhabitants. Here lungarno is like a room of a house, made to permit us to stop for a moment to rest looking reflexions on water and edifices' lines. Here city welcomes the river inside itself, sees it as a precious and purifier gift, to take care of and to admire. This town is Architecture.

CORNICIONE COLORATO DAL SOLE

Buildings' colours and drawings communicate. Those marbles with delicate colours and with shapes engraved as a miniature talk, and listen. Sun was pale and I were walking in a dark street. But in front of me those marbles said to raise the look and wait.. suddenly I were surprised by the brilliance of a cornice, gray stone transformed in yellow orange light by the last afternoon rays.

COSTA S. GIORGIO

Particulars are town as large buildings. Costa S. Giorgio hilly street opens some views which comprehend both the large and the small. Tower is Florence, and even street-lamp is Florence. Small and near, large and far: both the elements form the lines, transmit the personality of the epoch which generated them. Here we can walk and observe to confront ourselves with epochs, near and far.

SPECCHIO

In some days I have no wish to look at sky. How can it be a sky over those days? They are moments in which I walk thinking about me, about what could be and was not, maybe only because of a little event, tiny and yet that cannot be filled. I walk looking at ground. But ground is the place where water leans, and water is the place where hope is mirrored..

PONTE VECCHIO COLORATO DAL SOLE

Florentine May seems to be the month of energy. If it is true that all the energy we have comes from sun, then in this May energy shows itself more than ever: it is the month of sun, and now we reach the strongest colours. Sunsets' lines along Arno appear so long as to have no end, and oranges are so powerful as to make matter incandescent. You must be here in May, in Florence.

AL CENTRO DELL'ARNO

Every bridge is a choice between two possibilities; we can go in a world or in the other one. Person who doesn't go with hurry, however, discovers that a third choice also exists: stopping oneself in the middle and observing. The Ponte Vecchio is like an exaltation of this way of being. It suggests to break every run even only for a moment, and to count luminous dots which appear and disappear on water..

VIA S. LEONARDO

In the middle between town and country, with pavement's and little wall's stones as travel companions, and with infinite as roof: here's an unique street, which seems made to study while one is walking. Edifices are perfectly at human scale, and building is only a small terrace leaned on natural ground. Maybe this is a street of the ideal town.

FORTE BELVEDERE

A stair is a climb towards future. Steps can result more or less tiring, and distance to traverse can be more or less large; but behind us all is passed, and in front there is always tomorrow. I like the stair of the Fort, because it appears particularly easy and relaxing as a descent. And on the top, arrival is always a luminous word.

BELLOSGUARDO II

Base elements: a wall, a door, a window, a plant. No research of "studied" shapes, on the contrary an almost instinctive abandonment to innate shapes. This is not a simple house; it is symbol of a way of making construction, and is simplicity which becomes precious because generates friendly and familiar feelings.

TRAMONTO II

What is more to say about orange which comes from sun? After an afternoon like this I feel full of things to do, I feel that it's time to search one's own words to answer world which wants to invent and to converse.

BELLOSGUARDO

A period in which I feel a bit alone. A walk with parents is a fine moment. What a nice thing if all the world was like this, if it was a big walk with relatives.. If we think about the thing is not really too absurd. In this walk we arrived at a panoramic point over hills and over cypresses. I searched to fix that point, to remember the view seen from a walk as big as the world.

CASA DI BORGO PINTI

The first period in Florence, in a flat with students. The window of living-room: a typical florentine window with excellent shutters where Chiara set a little plant so that it catched sun's light. Its leaves seem green bulbs. Then Chiara left. I don't forget that little plant, and I don't forget Chiara.

PONTE VECCHIO DI MATTINA PRESTO

The small square in the middle of Ponte Vecchio appears to me as a crossroads: there lines of water, sky, passers-by, and sun intercross. Every morning it's a relief stopping in this square to enjoy first rays of light, tepid and luminous after the dark of night.

GIOCHI DI LUCE

I thought to nothing but geometry. It is a matter of a human abstraction, and yet nature has inside it its principles, geometrical theories. Here water and light give a perfect reflexion and their shape gets the upper hand, leaving to bridge's architecture the role of back-drop.

ACQUA SOTTO AL PONTE VECCHIO INTORNO A MEZZOGIORNO

In the year of civil service in Florence I passed many midday breaks to see water under the Ponte. Colour is always of its own typical green, and each wave generates a small star of light reflecting sun. It's fine looking at these small stars which turn on and off in continuation. Maybe that water is also universe, and I like to think that those dots of far light may be in reality so close.

LUNGARNO COLORATO DAL SOLE

Palaces of north-western lungarno are the ones I prefere. Often in second afternoon they become houses of gold, and Arno mirror them making their light shine still more far. A river in town is precious even for this, because it transforms stones of walls in liquid gold, and so who walks can receive those luminous gradations and feel stronger.

SERA

Union between water and light fascinates me. To forget all has gone wrong nothing is better than a walk along lungarni at the start of evening; when sky is still coloured, and among wawes we perceive both clouds and street-lamps. I see those lamps from far away as many little candles lighted by someone which wants to tell you: COURAGE.

VIALE GALILEO

It seems that each town has its characteristic colours. Maybe yellow and green are this for Florence; at least thus I noted in edifices of the first hilly zone. Quite clear yellows for plasters, and several clear and dark greens for wooden shutters. I like to associate this combining at colour of sun, which gives energy, and at that one of leaves, which refresh and give air.

COLORI DI SOLE

Many people look without paying attention and don't notice what they have in front of them. So when I put in exhibition this and others photographs a frequent comment was: "AAh, photomontages!". The problem is that we don't see when we haven't eyes to look. Such a sky is very very frequent from Piazzale's slopes!

PROFILO

From the small woods which are situated immediately under the Piazzale we find a right altitude to have a comprehensive vision; in front of us all the most important buildings of the historical profile of city. Horizon's lines move animated and vivacious, shapes of buildings and trees are in harmony, we feel at home when we look from here. Another example for the town of dreams.

COLORI DEL CREPUSCOLO

One of the fine things of world are sky's gradations. I often try to assimilate all them, from the darkest to the clearest; as I were following a path from earth to sky, from dark matter, heavy and tangible, to clear air, light and almost immaterial. It is not necessary an engine to fly.

SFONDO

Here we understand how drawings create a town. Theorical and abstract regulator drawings can originate anonymous and cold towns; lines which come out of a heart can generate a town of life. We never feel alone if we walk in a street which has this background.

OLIVO

Looking from Fiesole's hill is like to fly observing Earth which passes along its own path. The difference is that in Fiesole you are not alone with engines or with wings; you are in companionship with streets, houses, and trees. Nothing can abandon you and nothing can make you fall down. Nearby leaves look with you at far panorama, and with you they talk.

CANTIERE

This railing made me curious for its parallelism. In fact it is a matter of a tidy yard; several work's objects are placed in a "parallel" way, almost as they portray vertical lines of the Campanile di Giotto. Before this yard, I liked to go on foot along complete circuit of the Campanile's base. Today after about ten years there is still the barrage.

PONTI

I often searched a vision which comprehended as many bridges as possible; maybe because each bridge is an active communication, and I wanted to represent urban activity getting together several bridges in one image. Here there are three bridges; besides colour appears to me charming but a bit artificial. I must do other tries, I can do better.

PANORAMA

A sight from very high places, in which town appears as a drawing over fields. Even from this we can feel the character of an urbanized territory; and even of its inhabitants, in a very indirect way. We can also, with a bit more careful examination, see the evolution or involution of those characters in times. This can be used for building better one's own future, for that ones which want to do it.

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