Conversation with Fabio Castelli

“To bear witness to the power of art and to my love—especially for engraving first and then photography—I am pleased to accompany you and show you some works—a brief selection—that over the years have become part of my collection and hold a special meaning for me.
In the video, you can see, for example, a Hoepfner from 1945, which I particularly love; a Karl Struss photograph from 1920 with a very interesting Japanese frame; two photographs by Renato di Bosso (photographs of sculptures placed next to a sculpture). Then an engraving by Albrecht Dürer that I greatly admired, ‘Saint Jerome in His Study’ from 1514. A woodblock print by Hiroshige, which interested me for its approach and its Art Nouveau flavor. Also in the Art Nouveau style, a poster about the art of photography that intrigued me greatly. Finally, a key work marking my transition from engraving to photography, which is a cliché-verre piece by Corot.”

Karl Struss (New York 1886 – Santa Monica 1981) was an American cinematographer and photographer. He won the Oscar for Best Cinematography for Murnau’s film Sunrise in 1929. He collaborated on films such as Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Before entering the film industry, he established himself as one of New York’s most brilliant photographers. He was among the first cinematographers to move away from focusing solely on the camera to concentrate on lighting. Struss was also one of the pioneers in using panchromatic film negatives and expertly mastered the use of color filters for black and white films, techniques also employed for Fredric March’s transformations in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Renato Di Bosso Scultore (Verona 1905 – 1982), artistic pseudonym of Renato Righetti, approached the Futurist poetics through his association with Alfredo Ambrosi and subsequently read Boccioni’s Futurist Painting and Sculpture. In 1931, Renato Di Bosso Scultore was among the founders of the Veronese Futurist Group, in the presence of Marinetti. Then, in 1933, after contributing to the creation of various Futurist Manifestos, he participated in the First National Futurist Art Exhibition in Rome. Driven by continuous experimentation, the sculptor Renato Di Bosso created numerous works in both aeropainting and aerosculpture, despite a long hiatus following the war years.

Albrecht Dürer (Nuremberg, 1471 – 1528) was a German painter, engraver, mathematician, and theorist. Son of a Hungarian, he is considered the greatest exponent of German Renaissance painting. Saint Jerome in His Study is the third engraving in the famous series Three Master Engravings on copper. Saint Jerome in His Study is an allegorical representation of a contemplative lifestyle. The old man is seated at a music desk deep inside the study, while in the foreground a lion lies stretched out. Light penetrates through the windows of this quiet and cozy dwelling; however, symbols reminding of death invade the scene: a skull and an hourglass. Saint Jerome in His Study is a burin engraving (25.9 × 20.1 cm), dated 1514, and one of the best existing copies is preserved at the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe.

Hiroshige (Edo, 1797 – 1858) was a Japanese engraver and painter. Alongside Hokusai, he is considered one of the main Japanese landscape artists of the 19th century and one of the most famous representatives of the Ukiyo-e artistic movement. Hiroshige’s artistic production includes various genres, such as prints of actors, warriors, and courtesans, but the primary focus of his art was nature in its many expressions. The contemplation of nature and its subsequent representation in a morphologically harmonious way is what distinguishes Hiroshige from other painter-engravers of his time. Throughout his life, Hiroshige created about 400 engravings. His most famous series is The One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Hiroshige had an extraordinary influence on late 19th-century European painting, particularly impacting Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (Paris, 1796–1875) and the cliché-verre. Around the mid-19th century, a serial reproduction technique emerged that combined the ancient and meticulous activity of the engraver artist with the innovation brought by the invention of photography. This process, called cliché-verre, is now largely forgotten but was still based on the artist’s total control over execution, just as in traditional engraving techniques, with the added novelty of exploiting the effects of light on photosensitive paper. Unlike what often happens today—where a generic drawing is made and then somehow reproduced typographically—this technique involved making an actual engraving on glass to then use the effect of light on the photosensitive paper. The final effect closely resembles that of an etching, but with the possibility of creating particular color effects. Not many artists experimented with cliché-verre, but all were important: Millet, Rousseau, Delacroix, Daubigny. However, the artist who literally fell in love with this process was Jean Baptiste Camille Corot. The great painter learned the technique around 1853, and in just over twenty years, he produced 66 plates of splendid quality.