We
are glad to introduce at Your attention a nucleus of former votive
offerings of the XIX Century: a homogenous group of works, extremely
rich testimony of the glorious age of sail when Camogli was defined "the
city of the thousand white sailships".
The ties between
the votive offerings and the history of the camogliese navy goes
together with the devotion for the Holy Virgin by the sailors, and the
votive offerings guarded in the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Boschetto
are all of camogliese provenance.
From the paintings
and from the explicative captions written by the donor of the votive
offerings we are able to obtain a lot of informations about the boats:
bombards, schooners, brigs, best barks, pole brigs; about the captains
and shipowners, or the routes and the attained ports and on the traffics
they traded for the whole 1800's.
Obvious is the
executive quality of these works: the greater part is signed by
professional painters and they have nothing of the naïf character
typical of this kind of devtional paintings.
The more consisting
nucleus was painted by Domenico Gavarrone whose exceptional fidelity
reproduction of the hull sails details suggests that it has been formed
as ship designer and his technical acquaintance has a real
professional style.
Analogous fidelity
of reproduction we find in the works of Angelo Arpe, even if he rendered
greater effective attention for the heavy sea.
However for both
painters
the true protagonist of the painting is always only the ship while the
man, also when he feels itself miraculously escaped from the danger for
wich he wants to offer a votive painting to the Madonna, is relegated
decidedly in a secondary role.
Other consisting
group of works belongs to Giovanni Canetta of which only a votive
painting is signed, but whose decidedly painting personality distinguish
its acquarelli much more than if they were signed.
Guaranteed by a
skillful restoration and conservation, recovered the possibility of one
proper reading, the votive paintings can continue to conserve for the
camogliesi the testimony of a determining moment of their history and to
tell to all the faith, the courage and the culture of a society based on
the sea.
Due to the
difficulty to admire the paintings live, we have increased the size (and
weight), hoping that a longer waiting for their download will be greatly
rewarded by a better view of the almost life-size paintings.
Marcello Bozzo