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The Ceramic Art of Leonardo Castellani Giuliana Gardelli Introduction
In order to fully understand the personality of Leonardo Castellani, one cannot leave out of consideration the intense experience in ceramics that he accomplished in the extremely brief space of time in the Cesena of the second decade of this century, illuminated by the 'fresh' image of Renato Serra while attentive, even amidst the obvious contrasts, to the Futurist experiences brought there, by artists including Marinetti himself. The workshop was a point of passage from his first to a second youth, and these were the years in which a careful and receptive spirit worked out and molded, through trials, discards, and knowing adherence, its maturity. Since between school (first in Cesena, then in Florence) and the real work of the man and the artist, we find the difficult ceramic work on the Cesuola River, which was based on a nagging idea of design and alchemic research that resulted in an exasperated structuralism of form and density of a new and explosive use of vivid effects. It is thus from a careful examination of what little remains of that adventure that we must understand the genesis of the future body of works. His father's profession, cabinet-maker for the Casalini cabinet-making company in Faenza, then teacher at the Industrial School in Cesena, was undoubtedly at the basis of Leonardo's early training. Certain clear designs in the form of the majolica, certain precise cuts in the plasticity of the color, the same fundamental, never- repudiated, total and knowing adherence to the curved line that intersects and wraps in continuing spires and which has nothing to do with academic structuralism, are undoubtedly motifs acquired as the bases of his artistic foundation, from a «homegrown» experience that had its origins in the intaglio typical of cabinet-making.
The Workshop -1920/21 -1923
After having earned his diploma at the Cesena Industrial School, Leonardo enrolled in the School of Fine Arts in Florence, dedicating himself to the study of sculpture until he was forced to interrupt his work upon the call to arms and his subsequent participation in the war. When on leave, he often returned to Cesena, but between 1919 and 1920 he remained in Rome, as a student of Ettore Ferrari. Here he had a brief but important introduction to Futurism, through his friendship and frequenting of Balla, but above all in via dei Cerchi, where he had his first experience in ceramics. Because we possess no records of that moment, we don't know whether or not it was really of work or experimentation, and, if already along the lines of Futurism or a more traditional style, to what degree. Upon returning to Cesena, together with his father he decided to open a ceramics workshop, pushed by the need to work. What then, in that period between 1920 and 1921, was the cultural basis of Leonardo, upon which his ceramic experience was being grafted? And above all, what was that of his father, Federico, whose idea it had really been to open the factory and who had a considerable influence on its direction? It is doubtless that the years passed in Faenza in the Casalini cabinet-making company had given Federico the possibility to know how the pioneering work of Argani and Malagola was bringing to light the past glory of Renaissance Faenza and Romagna, but the fundamental incentive must have been that particularly favorable moment for economic recovery in the field of ceramics following the founding in 1908 of the museum in Faenza, the opening of the Regia School of Ceramics in 1919, and the thriving again of numerous factories and workshops in which artists like Baccarini, Melandri, Bucci and others were experimenting. Economic and commercial interests were then at the root of Federico's decision, and his artistic efforts, as several works and above all a plate with a delicate profile demonstrate, were tied to the romantic academic style of the 1800s. The factory was located in a large tower in the malatestian wall, on the Cesuola River. The potter came from Faenza, the earth from Brighella and the wood for the kiln via rail from Yugoslavia, as it cost very little. In all, the factory employed five or six people. It was destined, however, to have bad luck. On the one hand, the considerable misunderstandings between father and son weighed negatively on its running, caused by the considerable cultural difference between them which vastly outweighed the generation gap between them, as the two found themselves living in a moment of great changes in tastes, and in the social order; on the other, the hostility of the surrounding environment would have soon forced the Castellanis to close shop. It is difficult to understand the motives which pushed the neighbors to launch rocks through the windows (for a certain period, they were forced to work with the shutters closed), and above all to set two fires, the first of which was put out in time (by removing the brick which had been placed blocking the chimney flu), the second of which was disastrous. Perhaps the smoke emitted by the kiln damaged the work of the area's washer-women, who washed and hung their laundry nearby, on the Cesuola River; it is certain in any case that one night in 1923, when the townspeople were exiting the theatre, the news spread that the «Castellani» was burning. The mob hurried to the sight and amused itself throwing the glowing ceramics in the river; it was the end. Leonardo was probably not entirely displeased, as he was involved in other projects and interests, but those three years of chemical, design, and plastic experimentation must be considered a fundamental step in his artistic formation and personal development.
The Production
The rediscovery and valorization of Leonardo Castellani's ceramic activity came about shortly after his death, and it was only in the mid-1980s that a search was begun for the surviving production of the Cesena factory, whose logo, applied to all the finished pieces, consists in a symbol of a house and the word CAESENAE. Reconstructing a historical path, even if the space of just a few short years, is not easy; furthermore, until now no one has even attempted to identify the specific manual activity of Leonardo within the more generic work of the factory. In particular, we must distinguish clearly between the production influenced by his father along the lines of 'Romagnan' models and that of the son who, as will be demonstrated, appears to have been tied to Renaissance Tuscan models and the classical Greco-Italian traditions. Fortunately, relatives have conserved many preliminary designs for the decoration and the forms of the ceramics; a few pieces discovered recently with the date of 1923 constitute a good point for comparison. Thinking back upon that period, Leonardo much later would write, -'through this new craft, ... a way of opening myself to Futurism was revealed to me. A not too-orthodox Futurism, but Futurism nevertheless-'. In another entry, he confirmed that, «For those who don't know it, I'll say - to clarify this - that we produced a ceramic product that had nothing in common with that of Pesaro or Faenza, that people called «Futurist». In truth it was a late Futurism- (1). The author's uncertainty in the classification of his own work in a precise artistic movement indicates how, in essence, there was an eclecticism in which the ancient models of the traditions were not nullified but rather persisted as a base upon which to graft, without eliminating the substratum, successive artistic research. It is interesting to observe how, along with the already emphasized technical influence peculiar to the intaglio gained at the Cesena School, it was with all probability the Florentine Academy which indicated to him those cultural references interrupted by the Roman adventure which put him in contact with Balla and Futurism. Neoclassicism, the taste for the neo-Gothic and «neo-15th centuryism», aspects among themselves contrasting but able to live together', united to that of a more generic «liberty» style, and above all to the ever-prevailing classical word (Roman but also Greco-Etruscan), often in the version of decadent Rome, were the stimuli that were offered to the youth of the Academy. The repertoires upon which to exercise oneself came from the classical world, but also the medieval one. It is probably from these that young Castellani developed a taste for the «bestiary» fantastic, direct heir to the Gothic whimsy, for the entwined curvilinear movement of Arab and Eastern culture, and for the unbridled fantasy that has its roots in the complex Indo-European world. A direct consequence of his Florentine stay is the care he took in his preliminary drawings, ever precise, and above all the fundamental and indispensible bases of all research work. If he had limited himself to these aspects, he would have remained inert, copying ancient themes, but fortunately, the Florentine aspect of his artistic foundation was joined with the brief but intense Roman experience, in which Futurism would play a leading role. This, so to speak, unified the various tendencies, and succeeded in penetrating that sublayer, in breaking it down and reassembling it with the strength of a unifying element: the chromatic mass. It bases itself upon the design that restrains it and intensifies it at the same time, and avoiding 'sfumatos' and undertones creates an exasperated dynamism that is also enhanced in its plastic-formal aspect. Let us consider a few example of pieces that express the basic typology of the Cesena period.
PIATTO CON BEST1ARIO (Plate with Bestiary): the three small animals with whimsical forms chasing each other create an enveloping spiral rhythm typical of the medieval/Gothic world, exalted and underlined by the rhythms of the hillocks derived from Renaissance 'Bernardian' rays. The whole is contained by the dotted line of Greco-Italian tradition. A heterogeneous whole, as one can see, unified by a precise, clean design and by its color. If we compare on the one hand the Gothic «whimsy», in its own time heir to a Greco-Roman cultural substratum, to a plate with the symbolism of San Bernardino, we find that something new and fresh has been created.
VASO A DUE MANICI (Vase with Two Handles): at the top of its neck, a series of marsh fowl taken explicity from pro-Attic decorative tastes and from the insular and microasiatic «Eastemization» of the VII century B.C. punctuates the unhead-of enlargement of the handles; in the centre a band with the exasperated Central Italian Renaissance interpretation of the foil overlaps another with running animals (more stylized in a different version with the same form) that to the ancient 'orientalizing' substratum add the elastic dynamics of Futurism.
SERVIZIO DA DESSERT (Dessert-ware): the lines of the small bowl exalted by the three horizontal handles are set off by a chromatic explosion that recalls the ancient Tuscan «marmorata» (and its Pisan variation). But if the decorative motif of .the 1500s was left to chance, in that the colors were liberally mixed to form the «marezzatura» imitating effects, according to a taste rarely found in Emilia Romagna, now the visual impact is obtained with a pre-existing and studied design upon which the colors are laid out with a paintbrush, following a precise chromatic desire.
SERVIZIO DA PESCE (Tableware for Seafood): this splendid set consists of a large oval serving dish and four round plates (originally probably six), each furnished with a small plate cut along one side in order to take up less room on the table. On each of the pieces is written in upper case handwriting inside a scroll design the use for which it was destined with a very subtle cultural intensity.
On the small bone-plates is written: -NON V'E’ PESCE SENZA SPINA-, that is, «no fish is without bones». On the round plates are inscribed the following phrases: 1 - SCARO DATUR PRINCIPATUS -, or, .first place goes to the 'scaro', a seafish with a delicate flavour, perhaps served first. 2 - NIGRA SEPIA LINP(H)A VANESCENS -, -the seppia that disappears in black water-. The letter «h» is not clear and «linpha» stands for «lympha», probably alluding to the ink with the help of which the seppia escapes its enemies. 3 - ATTILUS INERTIA PINGUESCENS, that is, .the 'adello' grows fatter in its indolence-; the adello is a fish found in the Po River similar to the sturgeon. 4 - CANCER AQUATILE SIGNUM, «the crab, sign of water-, or else «the shrimp, sign of the presence of water-. On the large platter is written: INTER DELFINAS ARION, «Arion among the dolphins-; note the «F» in place of «PH».
As we can see, there is a knowledge of Latin, even if with vulgar influences, of mythology (the legend of Arion), recalling a rare species of fish, and perhaps a purposeful ambiguity beneath it all, almost a subtle irony. The decoration presents, in all of these a brim with hillocks beneath the scroll and Gothic foil; the round plates present an elegant crested fish, while the oval serving platter shows a whimsical dolphin with a foiled tail, curved as if leaping. In all, the rich chromatism is based on clean tones of green, blue, yellow and purple.
SERVIZIO DI P1ATTI CON DECORO A MACCHIE (Set of plates with 'splotched' decor): the decoration is documented by sketches and gauche based on the use of intersecting splotches of color, in accordance with a tension similar to that of certain designs of Depero and above all of Farfa, whose 1921 plate, «Gli Ombrelloni», (The Parasols) can very reasonably have offered the genesis for Castellani's tableware. Finally free of classical conditionings, it is one of the few, and perhaps the only real Futurist decor.
VASO DA FIORI (Flower Vase): its simple lines are enlivened by a multicolored vine that echoes yet again the Gothic foil and the 'toothed crescent-moon' introduced in Florence in 1400s in fabrics and majolica's. The novelty and the quality of the piece are once again entrusted to its chromatic density and its sinuous line.
Superimposition and resolution of the fundamental elements identified form other decor of the same rigor and chromatic impact. Leonardo must have sensed very early, however, his intolerance toward the repetitiveness of motifs already used, and the knowledge that he was not entering completely into the Futurist message. The artist in fact was not a common painter of ceramics; he had a solid cultural preparation and an uncommon literary vocation that brought him to look within himself and search out new paths. Probably between 1922 and 1923 he had already abandoned Futurism for a deeper adherence to art deco, which to him represented a «return to order».
VASO A PALLA (Ball-shaped vase): Even if the band at the neck recalls earlier linear tensions, the small bird in the relief is part of his particular 'bestiary', and the decor in its entirety is decidedly directed toward art deco, in a sweet lyricism that is both enveloping and, by then, far from the clear and blaring harshness of Futurism.
Inside the workshop, the models proposed in Leonardo's designs were carried out by others; in the first place by his father, who tended toward ... marketable product, in line with the more noted typologies of the Romagna region. The son's innovations probably seemed too daring to easily find their own share in the market. A few pieces with the logo of the workshop in fact present decorations which, if simple, are also graceful, of 19th century tastes, such as the tiny bird near the grape leaves that repeats analogous decorations of the Faenza and Imola schools. It is interesting to observe that a cockerel design typical of the Emilia Romagna region which was certainly Leonardo's carried out in a Futuristic key, was later carried out in a flower vase in the traditional 'ductus', almost certainly by his father, Federico. The same oscillation between tradition and innovation can be seen in the shapes employed. It is evident that it was with difficulty that the potter from Faenza was succeeding in separating himself from a technique of workmanship that must have been typically his; in any case he was capable of obtaining under Leonardo's direction extraordinary dynamic effects in the tea and coffee sets and in a few vases and bottles. Thus, next to the classical «archaic», «manfredian» or «malatestian» jug we find milk-jugs placed on elbow-shaped handles, the elegant cups whose tectonic solidity is lightened by the triple 'ears' at the borders, the liquor bottles whose tapered line is suddenly broken by an unexpected acute handle, and still again the flower vases, whose articulated vision is entirely enclosed by the light use of the handles. The clearest example of the double directive of the Workshop is that of the above-cited jug whose elegant line was exactly cast, as we have said, from the 'archaic' models, but whose decoration was entrusted to Leonardo's very modern 'bestiary'.
Ceramics in Urban Decoration
Along with the job of «ceramist d'atelier», young Leonardo adapted himself, out of economic necessity, to working alongside an 'artistic house-painter'. He carried out --decorative friezes and panels ... a few figures in entrance-ways ... pouncing was used and not only was a catalogue of tints of color offered to the client, but also the portfolio of possible motifs. The enfacing was ordinary, but we had a pump and spray-gun and we knew how to shape motifs with strong appearances-. Besides this discreet presence, the young painter out of necessity also proposed ceramic panels in the wake not only of the local tradition, but also of the intrusive -<liberty» decorativism, that had bent metal, stucco, cement and clay to totalizing modulations in close relationship to the structure of the walls. One must consider the fact that Balla's manifesto in 1916 represented itself as --the Futurist reconstruction of the Universe; upon this directive a noticeable strongpoint could rest in the decoration of homes and buildings; the immediacy of the visual message assumed a pregnant value for the divulgation of ideas and styles. Whatever its genesis was, Castellani's workshop carried out ceramic panels for signs, generic decorations for building facades and perhaps even for interior decoration. Very little today remains of a production which must have been rather rich and important. We know that he carried out a panel for Pilsen Beer and one for the Padua Training School, for a cafe in downtown Cesena and for other stores in Bologna. Leonardo wrote: «A large sign done in tiles, on the facade of the central cafe (in Cesena, editor's note), several square meters large, was the decoration that was preserved for the longest time, and which in a certain way marked the end of my work as a ceramist and Futurist". We deeply regret that which has been lost out of neglect or incompetence; fortunately, a few shreds of that activity have been preserved in Cesena. These two examples, one dating back to the beginning of his career, probably to 1921, the other to 1923, as shown by the date. These unique examples give us the possibility to follow the stylistic path of the artist. 1) Via Renato Sena, No. 8, - Via Martinelli, No. 43: A corner structure of cubic volumes, with denticulate string-course in 'imitation stone', facade with open views and trimming, surfaces using the contrast between bricks and plaster, it expresses a neo-Renaissance re-examination in a classical key. Just such an «impersonal» building, in which order and clarity reign, welcomed (upon whose suggestion it is unclear) five ceramic panels from Castellani's workshop, as shown by the trademark, unfortunately not dated. These were placed above the arches and one of the entrances. The square tiles (1.15 cm), opportunely fashioned so as to nullify the curved effect, create a rectangular space (154x112 cm) that touches the string-course. With their bright sky-blue background, they abruptly break with the fabric of the wall the borders of which, in red 'stringiled' terracotta mark the slow continuation of the classical. The ceramic work, apparently the same in all the panels, in reality contains modulations and variations so subtle that a magnifying glass is necessary to observe them. The panels present robust branches, obtained in yellow with touches of brown to symbolize the knottiness. Sharp splashes of color without shading are substituted for the traditional flowers and leaves, with a chromatic violence achieved with contrasting purple, green and yellow.
2)
Slight variations make the space vibrate; it is
simultaneously identical and at the same time always
different, with a penetrating dynamism that catches one
of the aspects of Futurism. But here the cultural base
still peeks in. If we compare this work in fact with
certain decorative forms derived from Japanese prints,
much used in the «liberty» style, we can observe some
similarities; but the most obvious reference is
undoubtedly to van Gogh's Branches of an Almond-tree
in Bloom (Saint Remy, 1890). And yet it is only a
starting point; the estranged result is left by Leonardo
to those falsely «random» details, in reality carefully
studied, that instead of representing nature, distort
and re-invent it, so that the two works express two
extremely remote realities. The «Futurist» adventure, if only superficial, is by now over.
The Cesena Experience in Italian Culture
The small ceramics factory in a Cesena which not even during the Renaissance had been able to impose a style of its own, living as it did in the shadow of Rimini and Faenza's artistic production, found in Castellani for the first time an extremely personal explosion, capable of placing it side by side with the highest resounding experiences in ceramics at the turn of the century. Or rather, in many ways, the production on the Cesuola River was amazingly avant-garde. If Balla, for example, designed ceramics from the second half of the first decade onward, their realization in Faenza came about much later, in 1928. In fact, it was really ceramics which accepted Futurism with a significant delay, in comparison to the fields of textiles, carpentry and interior furnishings in general. In Abissola the highest exponent of Futurism in the field of the majolica, Tullio Albissola, began work only in the mid-Twenties, continuing throughout the Thirties, both with personal projects and through the realization of those of Depero, Fillia, Farfa, Prampolini and others. Castellani's workshop, however, had already closed shop. In Faenza the Regia School was already active by 1919, guided in its conception by Domenico Rambelli and in its realization by Anselmo Bucci. From the beginning, it researched plastic and formal values that, along with the revision of themes from the middle Ages and from the 15th century, found an immediate adhesion to art deco that was without doubt precocious, and yet without the Futurist gestation that Cesena instead was audaciously offering. In that sense, in fact, no work of the School can in the least compare to that of Castellani. A recognition of this modernity and of his thematic and operative innovations was won by Leonardo outside of the Romagna region, and although his work there was supported and admired by his friends, such as the master Vio di Forli (whose work did not go beyond the limits of a provincial style), and Giannetto Malmerendi, a Faentine, in a certain aspect a Futurist. Likewise, there were his friends in Cesena, who in 1928 organized an exhibit of his ceramic work, where much of it was «lost» but in any event earned him a little money in order to support himself after the forced closure of the factory. And yet, beyond the Romagna region, his ceramic work had met with wide success. The Rinascente department store in Milan ordered such enormous quantities of his ceramics that he was unable to satisfy their demands. He participated with success in expositions in Paris and Cairo; all of his creations found a home. many were exported to the Americas (to Sao Paolo in Brazil); by a strange twist of fate, the numerous shipping crates of work sent did not earn the sums expected. The fact that he then dedicated himself to other art forms, the brief life of the factory and the family-style organization of the operations which logically resulted in low production levels are all factors that brought about a quick oversight of that which should rightly have been exhibited in the most important art shows in Romagna in the 1920s, which were undoubtedly on the level and of the quality of the national exhibits. Very much of this production of the highest quality in the field of urban decoration has disappeared — even recent renovations of buildings have unfortunately thrown away or cemented over panels which could easily have been saved. Steps must now be taken to make up for this destruction at least in part by searching for the surviving pieces, at least of the tableware sets, in order not only to fully understand the development of Leonardo's personality, but also to complete the artistic historiography of our century.
Urbino, 1930-1931: the last ceramic works
In Venice, Leonardo became friends with Virgilio Guidi and with Cardelli, dividing himself between his two vocations, literature and the visual arts, until offers to teach in either the Cortina School system or at the State Institute of Art in Fano arrived. Castellani chose the latter, for the greater job security the position offered. Between 1928 and 1930 he remained in this city in the Marche region as a professor of ceramics and pictorial art. We know nothing about his work in this period; a kind of -black hole» remains, like that of the period of his earliest experiences in Rome's via dei Cerchi. In any event, it was in Fano that he discovered his vocation of engraver, and it was there that the offer to move on to Urbino to teach Chalcography at the Art Institute, which he accepted, arrived. As much as it may appear strange, the last examples of his ceramic methods are from the early period after his transfer to the city of Federico da Montefeltro, where the ancient and noble art of the majolica appeared to be dying out. In any event, there were two small surviving factories to whose kilns, between 1930 and 1931, Leonardo sent a very few plastic figurines in which he seems to sum the gestural expressiveness already acquired and visions of new methodologies. During the Cesena period, his experience as a sculptor (which had been the primary subject studied at the Florentine Academy and in which, even working with Ettore Ferrari, he had found Futuristic connotations), had been distracted by the necessity to make the 'every-day' products required for the furnishing of the domestic table. Confined to the explosive modulation of color, in the years between 1921 and 1923 he had not occupied himself with the plasticity of the manipulation of the clay, which in its own way is a form of sculpture, and that does not diverge from the working of plaster, in which he had shortly before — in 1920 — left Il tratto della madre (Portrait of the mother) and Il violinista (The Violinist). We find again, in the small statuettes of the Urbino period of 1930-1931 painted over with a green monochrome speckled with white, the taste for the 'bestiary' which had been a 'leitmotif of the Cesena majolicas. On the contrary, the curving of the Canguro che salta (Jumping Kangaroo) molds the dynamic tensions that pencil and pen had created horizontally. But 10 years had not passed in vain. The other statuettes, L'attaccapanni con uccellino (Clothes-stand with small bird) and L'arbusto con animale pascente (Shrubs with grazing animal) appear now with a vision of art that reflects both the 'Rambellian' syntheticism and the affectation, at times mawkish, of Lenci, or even the gres' with speckled paint of the small statues of the same period of the Danish sculptor Knud Kyhn. The preliminary designs (a few of which were never carried out) demonstrate that Castellani was extremely up-to-date regarding the tendencies of the Thirties, not only within the Italian panorama where, as has been said, his work demonstrates similarities to that of Rambelli, Nonni and Bucci, but also within that of Europe as a whole. It is in that sense that his teaching of ceramics in Fano acquires importance as, if it has not left us any of his work, it certainly contributed to the opening of the European horizon to him, where he again demonstrated himself open to receiving the most modern tendencies. The two terracotta bas-reliefs, Animale scattante (Leaping animal) and Nudi di donna in paesaggio (Female nudes in Landscape) demonstrate an equilibrium of composition of calm eurythmics in which everything is orderly, and lived as if in an extremely intense lyric? dream. We deeply regret that Castellani did not continue along this path, and that he did not leave us other, new contributions to the ancient art of ceramics, but the path of an artist cannot be preordained, nor can it be foreseen. We would record, then, this quick passage, and secure its place in History.
_______________________________________________ (1) The biographical notes have been collected both from the written and voiced recollections of family members, above all Leonardo Castellani's wife, Edvige, and of his son, Silvestro. The autobiographical citations are taken from Vivere nel tuo paese, Vicenza, 1964 passim, and Tre prose, Urbino, 1990 passim.
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