YOU KNOW WHEN, HAVING TO SUPPORT AN IMPORTANT ARGUMENT OR DESCRIBE AN EVENT THAT IS CLOSE TO YOUR HEART... THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY,THEY ARE TOO MANY AND OVERLAPPING ON EACH OTHER, ALL IMPORTANT, ALL VITAL, ALL “NECESSARY” TO YOUR DESCRIPTION THAT... YOU NO LONGER KNOW WHICH WAY TO START, WHICH ARGUMENT TO GIVE PRECEDENCE TO.... IN SHORT, WHEN THERE ARE TOO MANY ARGUMENTS, THE BRAIN GOES HAYWIRE....
UNFORTUNATELY (COULD IT BE AGE?!) TO ME THIS JUMBLING OF IDEAS HAPPENS OFTEN, EVEN NOW, AS I AM WRITING TO YOU....
I WAS LOOKING FORWARD TO COMMENTING ON THIS FIREPLACE, WHICH HAS A BEAUTIFUL HISTORY AND A MARBLE FABRIC THAT THE WHOLE WORLD ENVIES US, AND NOW I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START...
LET'S DO THIS, IF YOU WILL: I'LL START THIS COMMENTARY WITH THE STORY OF ITS SCULPTURAL BIRTH AND MAKING, THEN EVENTUALLY, AFTER I'VE CALMED DOWN FROM MY INITIAL EXCITEMENT, WE'LL TALK ABOUT ITS FASCINATING AS WELL AS PRECIOUS MARBLE, FOR ME ONE OF THE TWO OR THREE MOST BEAUTIFUL MARBLES IN THE WORLD.
We are on the CÔTE D'AZUR, we are in the last decades of the nineteenth century, scent of the Belle Epoque, of early Art Nouveau... and a wealthy bourgeois (whom we will call Alain for convenience ), for his house on the CÔTE D'AZUR wants a particular fireplace, stylistically fashionable and dressed in a refined marble... Our Alain then turns to an architect from Nice (one can immediately see the hand of an architect from that area, unmistakable, as unmistakable is a fireplace designed by a Parisian architect....
FIRST AND VERY IMPORTANT DOWRY OF THIS FIREPLACE: IT WAS MADE AS A SINGLE, UNIQUE PIECE, NOT MASS-CARVED BUT DESIGNED AND MADE ONLY FOR OUR ALAIN AND FOR THOSE WHO WILL INHERIT IT FROM ALAIN HIMSELF OR BUY IT FROM US.
The architect from Nice, on oiled paper and with an ink nib makes his design.
SECOND IMPORTANT ADVANTAGE OF OUR fireplace: IT HAS AN AFFASCINATING IDEA, COMPLETELY INNOVATIVE IN COMPARISON TO CLASSIC SCULPTURAL PRODUCTION, LET'S EXAMINE IT TOGETHER, IF YOU LIKE: Everything gravitates to the heart carved in the center of the front. This heart not only represents centrality, the most important point of being in which it beats, but also represents, above all, the goodness, the sweetness, the love of the person who possesses it toward all the rest of the world, for his family first and foremost.. If surrounding this heart is a fascinating jagged decoration “ like a jellyfish” (an idea that is not new if very rare), IN THAT HEART IS A RADIUS FROM WHICH SPROUTS A FLOWER, THE PETALS OF WHICH, POINTING UPward, MAY BE LANGUAGES OF FIRE.. This “scene” has NEVER appeared in any sculptural work among those known. ITS MEANING SEEMS CLEAR TO ME: IN THAT HEART THERE IS GOODNESS, WARMTH, BEAUTY, WILL AND STRENGTH.
And now that the project is done and approved, our Alain must look for a sculpture workshop that can physically make the desired fireplace. There are several, of sculpture workshops, around Nice and Marseille , this is because the ports of these two cities unloaded a lot of marble of Italian origin (the worldwide favorite of those with good taste) and our Alain, advised by the architect, chooses a workshop where the best Basque sculptors work.. You who are reading this will say to me .... “But how, if the sculpture workshop is on the CÔTE D'AZUR, what are the Basques doing there who are Spanish?! Well, some French people will be offended if they ever read my answer, but I give Caesar what is Caesar's: The French had neither an ancient nor an excellent school of sculpture while the Basques were fairly good, experienced, great workers and cost less than the French workers... So our Basques bypassed the Pyrenees and went “in season” as far as Burgundy, where they carved the beautiful “Pierre Dorée,”
HIS MARBLE,THE THIRD IMPORTANT DOWRY OF OUR FIREPLACE. In the fascinating world of marbles it often becomes difficult to make choices, each family has its own interesting peculiarities, however, in short, in the end some choice becomes “natural”... It's a bit like choosing MIss Italia, if it were up to me I would give all the participants a nice turreted crown as first in the class, but one of these young ladies, at some point, you have to crown her!!!
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THIS UNIQUE MARBLE:
A) First of all, its “background paste,” a very pure calcium carbonate, the same “material” of the most beautiful statues in the world, from those of michelangelo Buonarroti to those of Canova, just to name two sculptors who were more than lovers of Carrara Statuary. marble of only and purest Lime Carbonate..
B) Its “gray” frezzature. , due to plant fossils similar to many others, BUT ... with purplish hues!!!
C) In some places, ALSO, the reddish color of a sunset, a chromatic element, this, due to the presence of iron oxides..
IT IS THIS CHROMATIC MIXTURE THAT HAS MADE, BESIDES ALL THE RICH FLORENTINE FAMILIES, A GOOD PART OF THE SCULPTORS OF ALL THE KNOWN WORLD FALL IN LOVE.
