Emozioni capresi d'inverno

FRANCO VACCARI

Today, as in other fields, Photography also presents a paradoxical situation where object and subject, author and spectator, work and interpretation exchange places, so that the usual conceptual tools are of no use to us.

Perhaps, in this specific case, it may be helpful to extend Duchamp’s concept of ready- made, and to view Severi’s photographs as examples of the stylistic ready-made.

Given this premise, we may loose ourselves in the doubtless pleasure that these images will procure. The fading of the prospective cage, the disappearance of the harshness of detail, the permeation of forms and colours, the vanishing of the author’s invasive craving to be the protagonist, free a spectrum of sensations that are uniquely fresh.

It is like contemplating the world at dawn when, after the night’s rest, everything appears intact, full of renewed energy and our senses are open to the subtlest of suggestions.

The lanes of Capri become places of adventure, where the play of lights and shadows gives life to the ghosts of our desires, while the green embraces us. To see clearly, one must not stare too directly. That which touches us is always something that has been captured out of the corner of our eyes.

And then, something noteworthy has occurred: Capri, the embalmed Capri with its tiresome clichés, worn out by too much looking and too many postcards, has been scraped clean and finally restored to a new, fragile authenticity.