In a recent piece, Cathedral of the Pines, you can see a photograph taken in Japan by Fosco Maraini, an Italian anthropologist and much more than that. How apt then, to discover that the Florentine native, Maraini, photographed the art historian who re-introduced the modern world to the Renaissance: Bernard Berenson. Berenson is seen here in a picture taken near the end of Berenson's long life in 1954 at Villa Palognia in Bargheria, the home of Maraini'a Sicilian wife. Berenson stands before examples of statuary that he had reinterpreted for 
a new generation.Standing in front of her house built into a mountain, the unnamed woman at left is also displaying a piece of her country's heritage in stone. The town of Matera, located in the 'arch' of the Italian boot, is known for Sassi di Matera (stones of Matera), one of the earliest settlements on the peninsula, dating back approximately 9,000 years.
I mentioned before that Fosco and Topazia fled the Facsist regime in 1938, moving to Japan. With the couple was their first daughter, Dacia, a writer whose recollections of her father have been my source of information on Maraini's life and work. The other photographs here were taken in Japan. T
he photos of the girl holding a paint brush to her cheek during art class and the apprentice fisherman among his nets exhibit the open-hearted curiosity of the anthropolgist. But we find even more than that in Maraini's work. The telephone pole listing from the effects of a typhoon at Nara, the rope sandal left behind on a rainy dock, and the snow-capped m
emorial stones in a cemetery, all finely composed, testify to the relationship between humans and the natural world, as surely as antique stonework.
5 comments:
These are incredible and unique b/w images! Thank you!!
Welcome, S. I find Maraini's photographs riveting, as you do. He also worked with color, very different images, and I'm still figuring out what to say about them. Stay tuned!
I'm a bit speechless myself ... that last one of the snow-covered grave stones looks like a scene I stumbled across once in Yokohama.
I went back to check on that cemetery, but without success. Maraini was usually precise about labelling his photographs; this one only gives the date - 1977.
Hmm, thanks for checking, Jane. Who knows? Maybe it is the same one.
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