>>> Artistic Techniques Seminars
Lecture
The lecture explores how masculine, feminine and androgynous images of the divine have served as allegories of profound inner models of peace, strength, harmony, immensity, happiness, abundance and the virtues and aspirations that have guided human growth.
We examine statues and masks from ancient cultures to understand how inner qualities have taken human or anthropomorphic form. Our focus is the most expressive anatomical area: the face. Faces and the masks that represent them possess fascination and expressive energy when a sense of “presence” comes alive within them. This presence is not merely an aesthetic effect: it communicates feelings and inner states that reach far beyond the simplified figures themselves.
Workshop
This is a clay-modelling workshop. On the first day, participants construct the anatomical foundation of a face without needing previous technical knowledge. Through meditation, they then undertake an inner search to discover the features of their mythical face.
They shape the faces through emotions and suggestions, seeking to give them a sense of ancient and mysterious presence. Clay, a humble material used since the beginnings of human history, can evoke deep ancestral feelings. The task is to recognise these impulses and respond to what the earthy material suggests. It is a form of meditation through modelling, in which matter and emerging forms point the way forward.
Workshop Topics
Who Is It For?
Anyone who wishes to represent the face of their inner guide. Maximum 12 participants.
Duration
16 hours on Saturday and Sunday, plus a two-hour lecture on Friday evening.
Cost
The fee is agreed with interested participants.
Download workshop information sheet (PDF, Italian)
Lecture preview
Ancient Heads as Allegories of Inner States
The earliest clay creations depicted animals. From the Neolithic or late Palaeolithic period (around 10,000 BCE), however, we have inherited representations of human heads, including examples from Easter Island, the Danube region and the Nuragic civilisation.
What strikes us in these works is not realism or meticulous detail, but their expressive power and mysterious quality. Although clearly non-realistic, these faces resemble ritual and theatrical masks from many cultures, including African and Indigenous American traditions, ancient Greece and China, and the masks of the commedia dell’arte.
They may be simple, roughly carved faces, yet they can be no less moving than anatomically accurate classical or Renaissance sculptures. Technical mastery can sometimes result in emotionally sterile work. It is no coincidence that early twentieth-century artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Brancusi and Modigliani drew inspiration from African and Oceanian art.
These creations differ fundamentally from realistic portraits. Primordial masks and sculptures do not simply reproduce the human face; they give visible form to feelings, mental states and psychophysical energies that cannot be directly seen in a face. They are emphatic allegories: some facial features are reduced or removed, others exaggerated, while imagined animal or plant elements may be added, or anatomical features multiplied.
Features removed, emphasised or added to these faces make them seem to belong to another world: a world of sensations, ideas and experiences revealed through mysterious and unusual anatomies.