10 - The shape of sacred beauty

Calabrian-born artist Antonio Caruso immortalizes faith through his sculptures

The shapeless piece of wood slowly comes alive under the chisel, as a sculptor's hand carves it in search of a face, a body movement, or even a look. Little by little, a figure emerges from the fibres and chips that kept it concealed, and it becomes a sweet baroque Madonna and Child. You can't help thinking that maybe the Greek philosophers were right in their idea that the shape is already present within the matter, marble or wood, and that the artist's task is to take it out.
Antonio Caruso lays his chisel down, gives a final look at his freshly drafted Madonna and sits down.
"Yes, I believe those Greek philosophers were indeed right," he says. "But I add something else to this work of taking a figure out of the wood. Especially when carving sacred sculptures, I try and identify with people who'll look at them, in an effort to give expression to their need to pray; to put themselves in communication with God. Then I ask myself and the matter I'm handling something more, so that this communication becomes as direct and immediate as possible."
Caruso is a Calabrian, born in Serra San Bruno, and has been living in Canada for five years. The first time he came here was in 1982, for an exhibition of his works (frescoes and statues) at the Thunder Bay National Exhibition Centre. The success he achieved was so great that he was granted a high award by the municipal authorities and had an easy time in obtaining further exhibitions in major Canadian cities. He imported the fresco, an ancient pictorial process that requires the artist's mastery of technique as well as a deep knowledge of materials.
A great fresco by Antonio Caruso will be unveiled on December 8 at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Woodbridge. The work, created thanks to the generosity of Vittorio De Zen and his family, is eight metres wide and four metres tall, and is dedicated to the Madonna. It joins two more large frescoes, both made by Caruso, dedicated to the themes of the Baptism and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Antonio Caruso's original plans did not include Canada. They included Italy, "where you can breathe," he says, "art and culture everywhere." Then a dramatic event, his father's death in a car accident, shattered his life and plans. But it couldn't wipe out his passion for art, discovered when he was in junior high school at the Camigliatello Silano boarding school. "It was there," he remembers, "that my art teacher noticed my natural inclination for figurative arts. So he taught me to study the materials. For instance, he explained how to choose the best clay to make small statues"
How do you choose it?
"Using your teeth and your tongue. That's the only way to find out whether it is rich, and therefore fit for modelling statues and objects."
Having lost his father in a car accident, Antonio Caruso, who was then 15, had to cut his studies short and move to Bergamo. He found a job in a cardboard-box factory. After some time spent finding his footing, he enrolled in an evening school and became a building surveyor. But he didn't stop there: after getting his high-school diploma, he enrolled first in the "Carrara" Fine Arts Academy in Bergamo, then in the prestigious "Brera" Academy in Milan. He got lucky and became a collaborator of Valigia Diplomatica, a magazine that gave him the opportunity to participate in collective and personal art shows, much like it had done for people like Annigoni, De Chirico, Dalì, Fiume, and Purificato.
In 1979, during a personal exhibition at the Lazzarini Palace in Pesaro, he presented an innovative technique, called frescography (tempera and oil). He had a great success and was selected for the Thunder Bay exhibition. The rest is the story of these last few years, spent balancing himself between Europe, the United States and Canada, personal exhibitions, statues restored and created in the most diverse materials, wood, marble, bronze, sandstone; frescoes, oil or tempera paintings; and mosaics. "Caruso is one of the few contemporary artists able to excel in the various techniques of figurative arts" writes Raffaele De Grada, a respected Italian art critic who teaches Art History at the Brera Academy.
Bergamo was the place where Caruso found his way and made a family. "I met my wife Giuseppina at an art show of mine," he remembers. "She liked a bust of Jesus Christ I had made in clay. She asked me about it, but I had already sold it to somebody else. She was disappointed, but she was able to get even."
How did she?
"By marrying me, so she could take everything I made! I'm joking, of course, but I want to say that ours is a happy marriage because we're still in love with each other. We have two children: Angelo Demis, who's now 23, and Cinzia Gretel, 15, and both of them often help me with preparatory work. After all, that was how I started, even though in different conditions."
What do you mean by different conditions?
"When I was young, for instance, my townsfolk, knowing of my drawing skill, made me paint posters for soccer matches. That was an apprenticeship of a sort, and I had no one to teach me. Then, with my fellow teenagers, I went and looked at buffaloes watering at a pond near my town. I always had some soft wood with me, and while observing these beasts approaching the water, I used a sharp knife to capture their shape in the wood. Even in this case I had no teachers. Moreover, I had to hide it all."
Why?
"Because my parents forbade me to carry a knife, which I needed for my first sculptures. So I got some pieces of barrel hoops, I sharpened them on a hard stone, I made wooden handles for them and those became my first chisels. This is how I began."
And you imported frescoes to Canada.
"Well, let's say so, because here in Canada there's a lot of confusion between frescoes and mural. They think that frescoing a wall consists of painting over it. But that's a mural. A fresco needs a long preparatory work and a knowledge of the materials used to make the foundation, as in sand and lime. Here, I see that cement is also mixed in. Nothing could be more wrong."
Don't they teach these things in art schools?
"You see, here art is studied in theory. I notice it in the naïve questions that art students ask me when visiting my studio. They ask me, for instance, whether I make sketches for a statue or a fresco myself. Who should do them, if not me?"
In your opinion, why are there these learning gaps?
"Maybe due to the scarce importance art is given here. They think art brings no gains. This society is based on business, and many are convinced that business can only be done by working in other fields: banking, insurance, enterprises in general. And that's what matters."
The Italian community, coming from a land filled with art, should be more receptive to these problems. Is it?
"In general, very little is done here for art, both within our community and outside of it. Among us Italians, there are receptive people, and I must say that, especially in the beginning, they helped me a great deal. I'm thinking of Giovanna Zovatto, honorary vice-consul in Thunder Bay, or Father Carlo Titotto and other people who showed a willingness to understand an artistic message. There aren't many of them, but such people do exist. And then the frescoes and statues I make for churches or homes prove that there is some interest. What I lament is the lack of a serious policy on art. There's no education on beauty, do you understand? So a work of art is generally seen more as a decoration; a piece of furniture. This attitude can be found both in the Canadian community and in the Italian Canadian one. Most of our people, for instance, are contented with participating in a meeting of a local club, or the saint patron's festival or parade. They go no further. On the contrary, a lot could be done, because the ground is fertile. Few, here, really know Italian art."
Even with the handicaps you mention, what types of artistic production is most appreciated here?
"I'd say Baroque art, and in fact my sacred statues are inspired by the Neapolitan Baroque tradition."
Your statues are more expressive when they are just done in rough than when they're finished.
"To tell you the truth, I too like them better when they are still in their rough stage. But my customers want 'a finished statue,' and so I have to finish and paint them. I try and use the colours, and the faces of Neapolitan tradition; both are very much in demand. And following this tradition is precisely why I often go to Italy. But I also go there to find my inspiration."
What keeps you in Canada, apart from the commercial aspect as a painter and a sculptor? You told me full artistic receptivity is lacking here.
"First of all, I like this country, and the way it is organized. Here you always know, very clearly, what your duties and your rights are. But precisely because artistic receptivity is not at its highest, there's a lot of space for working, and educating. After all, isn't education one of art's foremost functions?"
What is the future for you?
"Constantly moving towards ever more difficult destinations."
Have you any regrets?
"Although I think of myself as a lucky man, I think I could have done more and earlier. My regret is this permanent dissatisfaction. But dissatisfaction helps me to believe in the future, in achieving what I couldn't achieve the day before."

(translated by Emanuele Oriano)

Publication Date: 2002-12-22
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2185