Maria Grazia Cappetti
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Our artists are the Maria Grazia Cappetti and her father Giovanni Cappetti.Maria Grazie Cappetti was born near Naples in Southern Italy and has been working for several years with her father Giovanni Cappetti producing Italian Baroque panelling for international export all over the world including locations in the USA, Saudi Arabia and Germany. |
Maria Grazia's rich cultural heritage includes training in design and watercolour with Wanda Fiscina followed by studies in painting and fine art with Virginia Quarta and Raffaele Graziano. She successively turned to ceramics working with the Masters Pompeo Pianezzola, Guido Mariani and Emiddio Galassi at the School of Faenza.
At Ogliara, reknowned for its production of beautiful ceramics, Maria Grazia worked at the studios of Horst Simonis, the famous "experimenter" of the Ernestine factory producer of fine ceramic art from 1950 to 1970. She also collaborated with him in the joint production of various individual panels.
Maria Grazia's individual works are collected in The Classic Majolica Madonna Collection which are a series of icons of Donne Madonne (Ladies Our Ladies) which have explored figure and colours similar to those of Simonis and embodying the training of her father, Giovanni Cappetti, reexpressed in her own original personal style.
Maria Grazia has also exhibited together with the artist Susanna Snellman, from Finland, both of whose themes have been feminine where Maria Grazia has contributed in the style of the Southern Mediterranean with a repetoire of human and sacred imagery. Such a style is reminiscent of the artist Carlo Crivelli where Maria Grazia has recreated classic themes in a contemporary style.
Giovanni Cappetti
Giovanni Cappetti may be said to be the principle contemporary exponent of the original Grand Southern Italian Majolica tradition. His training has included studies in literature, phiolosophy and archtitecture at the Neapolitan Academy to the exploration and experimentation of the raw materials particularly the enamels necessary to create his works of art.
His ability to fuse expert workmanship with a refined sense of eighteenth century classicsm has rewarded him with both National and International recognition at, for example, the Farnese Group Exhibition in Milan in 1989, the Bagatelle Centre in Paris in the early 1990s, and at the New York Institute in 1992 where his masterpieces were displayed in the great exhibition entitled "Piazza Italia".
Giovanni Cappetti's art has appeared in decoration and architectural publications both nationally, in Italy, and internationally. His masterpieces have been sent all over the world, from Europe - Switzerland, France and Germany to Russia, the USA and the Middle and Far East including Saudi Arabia and Japan.
Giovanni Cappetti has reached both national and international fame above all for his reproductions of the great seventeenth century Neapolitan masterpieces, such as the majolica cloisters of the Church of Santa Chiara in Naples (1739-1742).
This is a remarkably beautiful sequence of sixty benches with pillars having an octagonal section which were constructed by D.A.Vaccaro and tiled in majolica by Donato Massa.
One of the most unusual locations for the reproduction of scenes from Santa Chiara was a 30 square metre panel in the reception hall on the Dutch cruise ship the "Rotterdam IV". The elaborate detail of the artwork adorning the pillars is shown below.
However, the magic of Giovanni Cappetti's Santa Chiara also appears in famous sumptuous villas as well as in the Salernitan Cappuccini Convent. The stately "wind rose", shown below, incorporating sculptured scrolls or bunches of grapes in full bodied clusters, baskets or cornucopias overflowing with fruit and flowers, medallions with decorations of human figures, peacocks with their tails pompously displayed, luxuriant fountains, triton-dolphins with scaled bodies in the style of eighteenth century animals, squares and circles, floral cornices and other essential geometries which he has taken from the great seventeenth century majolica tradition which cover the walls and floors of churches and cloisters, villas and monasteries all over Southern Italy.
Of equivalent beauty are Giovanni Cappetti's other creations such as the "azulejos", the most distinct expression of the Portughese artistic-artisan tradition, or panels preserved in foreign museums, which are adapted to their new location such as "The Great Tree of Knowledge" in the hall where degrees are conferred at the Pontificio Istituto Angelicum in Rome, or the coat of arms of the Province of Salerno in the hall of Saint Augustines Palace which is the seat of the Salerno Provincial Council.
In the reeditions, the ancient models used by the original artisans to realize their unique works are faithfully reproduced. In these reelaborations this immense decorative patrimony represents the substrate which he uses to recreate his eighteenth century majolica employing symbols and shapes revisted for entirely new projects.
Bearing testimony to the quality of his productions is the great importance of Giovanni Cappetti's preparatory sketches, an example of which is shown below, which are precise and highly detailed. These are actual studio sketches for projects of often very large and grand dimensions such as the ellipitical designs found in numerous floors and halls of large hotels, cultural institutions and even the base of swimming pools of arab princes.
The detailed calligraphy, which is painstakingly reproduced, is part of Giovanni Cappetti's rigorous method of working, which is very physically demanding right up to the completion of the artwork, which is then laid out in its entirety piece by piece on the factory floor for further scrutiny. Nothing is left to chance, and every aspect of the final product is checked with the original design to ensure perfection.
But the procedures followed to respect the rules of antiquity make each product unique, with the delicate irregularities which are true to the spirit and nature of the original art.
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