"The man had come out of the sea carrying his own aquarium with him": Online exhibition curated by Francesca Rivetti, contemporary Visual Artist and Photographer

In this small mosaic dating from the mid-nineteenth century, the figurative narrative adheres to naturalistic principles in its representation of reality, celebrating a primordial need shared by every living creature: the need to quench one’s thirst.

The composition appears harmonious and, considering that it is a mosaic, surprisingly fluid, even though it is composed of minute tesserae. The rhythm of the scene seems to be determined by the touch of the central dove’s beak: by rippling the water, it imparts a sense of movement to a structure that would otherwise appear hieratic and still.

Thanks to this motion, and through the contrast between the uniform brightness of the foreground figures and the unmodulated darkness of the background, the identity of the latent subject is revealed: water itself. The sensory freshness of the aquatic element emerges as the true silent protagonist of the work.

Landscape with Halberdier is a small canvas painted in 1673 in the manner of Salvator Rosa.

In this work, the double diagonal, simultaneously created by the symmetry between the twisted position of the large central tree and the analogous posture of the halberd, imposes a geometric order upon the underlying disorder of a wild natural landscape.

Behind the halberdier, at the edge of the horizon, a nearly phosphorescent reflection from a pool of water competes with the blue of the sky for the viewer’s attention. At first glance, this pictorial element may seem merely incidental; yet upon closer consideration, it reveals itself as a symbol of the origin of life and, as such, as a representation of the life-giving force that animates the human figure itself. In its own subtle way, it functions almost as a latent halo.

The painting Latona Transforming the Peasants into Frogs is a work by Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675), the refined landscape painter of the Roman Baroque.

In this medium-sized canvas, Dughet depicts the Ovidian episode of the goddess Latona who, exhausted by Juno’s persecution, sought to quench her thirst at a pond. Some peasants, however, prevented her from drinking by muddying the water in mockery. Offended in her dignity, the goddess condemned them to be transformed into frogs.

Although the body of water occupies only a small portion of the foreground, it is precisely upon those thin liquid lines, seemingly marginal yet fundamentally decisive, that the intrinsic spirit of the entire composition rests. Within those delicate, nearly suspended horizontal surfaces, one perceives the motionless density of a magical state, a stillness that appears to defy gravity, expanding the temporal dimension of the image.

Amid the interplay of vertical and horizontal lines, near the large tree at the center of the scene, a raised arm can be discerned, the hand open in a gesture: it is the moment in which a man, caught in the midst of his metamorphosis, becomes amphibious, on the verge of being surrendered to the destiny of the frog. It is a suspended instant in which guilt, punishment, and miracle merge within the same motionless surface of water.

Giuseppe Maria Crespi, known as Lo Spagnuolo (Bologna, 1665-1747), was a Bolognese artist of extraordinary versatility, capable of moving with ease between sacred and secular subjects.

In Saint John the Baptist Baptizing the Crowds (c. 1730), the aquatic element is barely visible, emerging only in the lower portion of the composition. Yet, despite its discreet presence, it is perceived almost subconsciously. A masterful interplay of perspective lines directs the entire dynamic of the scene toward the gesture of the Baptist, who occupies the central focal point of the composition.

Water constitutes both the material and symbolic foundation of the entire scene. In the upper part of the painting, as the eye moves farther away from the water, the atmosphere gradually darkens. The ritual use of water, together with its role in transportation, is perhaps among the most universal practices in the history of civilizations, from Ancient Egypt and Babylon to Maya mythology and the Qur'an.

In this Baptism of the Crowds, immersed in a strongly chiaroscuro atmosphere, the essence of a collective and symbolic use of water emerges with particular clarity. The element illuminates the figures with a gentle light that nonetheless resonates within the realm of human sensibility.

Luigi Ghirri (Scandiano, 1943-1992) was one of the great masters of contemporary Italian and international photography, placing at the center of his artistic research the themes of “seeing” and “visual thought.” Particularly emblematic is this image, in which the subject of the sea, reduced to a thin horizontal band of softly shaded blue, is at once stylized and emphasized, to the point of taking on the appearance of a small, mysterious icon.

The reflected subject constitutes the only truly sharp element within the composition. Around it, only a few slightly blurred visual clues, arranged vertically, seem to form an abstract and silent frame that further accentuates the central portion devoted to the sea. It is a composition that appears to address itself less to the eye than to the unconscious.

The photograph depicts the beach and sea of Marina di Ravenna, places deeply connected to Ghirri's inner geography. The work belongs to the body of research known as Paesaggi di Cartone (Cardboard Landscapes), later incorporated into Kodachrome, in which shop windows, fragments, details, and ordinary scenes, visual objets trouvés and ready-made images, are transformed through Ghirri's unique observational perspective. As John Berger wrote in Ways of Seeing: "A vision of the world that denies connection and continuity, yet grants to every moment that character of a mistery".

Mare verde. The final work in the exhibition is by the Italian artist Stefano Arienti (Asola, 1961), whose interests range from biology to art history. Associated with the legacy of Arte Povera, Arienti often begins with extra-pictorial materials which, through a variety of techniques, he reworks and transforms, endowing them with new meanings of a more distinctly metaphysical nature.

The work consists of a large laminated poster depicting a contemporary seascape: green waters, with boats and human figures appearing at the edges of the composition.

At the center, a zipper both unites and divides the sea. Applied directly to the plastic surface, it creates a kind of vertical rupture within the image, suggesting to the viewer the conceptual alternative of a metaphorical opening or closure.

The sea is thus presented not merely as a landscape but as a threshold, a surface capable of concealing or revealing meanings. The zipper transforms the image into a space of possibility, where matter and concept, reality and imagination, coexist in a state of tension and reciprocity.

As Francesco Ferrari writes: “An investigation between matter and concept through unusual techniques and materials. An art in which the playful, the ironic, the technological, the alternative, and the socially engaged merge seamlessly.” (F. Ferrari, introduction to Del contemporaneo, B. Mondadori).