Il mito innamorato di Andrea Chisesi

‘It is said that when the Greek hero Acamantus was forced to leave for the Trojan War, he left his his beloved, Phyllis, in despair waiting for him. After ten long years of waiting, she

died, but the goddess Athena took pity on her and transformed her into an almond tree.’

Andrea Chisesi reinterprets the works of art of the great masters dedicated to the Myth, transposing them into his dimension, he encapsulates social deterioration through posters taken from the street, as in a a large supermarket of emotions, the advertisements become a palette of colours masterfully ‘fused’ into his painting.

The artist embarked on his journey with the intention of showing us love, dedicating this collection to the divinities of ancient Greece, her aim is to renew desire, to return to primordial instincts, to give space to emotions and to strip away distrust.

The intimate tactile relationship of two or more entities through the encounter of the senses and instinctive emotions, are the engine of our existence.

What is love?

The ancient Greeks divided the feeling of love into four primordial areas, each part of it helps us delineate the great sense of wonder and amazement, that constant aura of happiness  that we we feel and which we often cannot describe without our minds returning to the beloved.

Sons, husbands, lovers, wives and ambitions, all actors in an extraordinary feeling; love.

In the Olympus commanded by Zeus, trials of courage and duels, revenge and passion intertwine, an interchange between the divine and the earthly that tells of impossible loves made possible, of envy and jealousy that trigger hatred and revenge.

First and foremost is family love, which the Greeks call storge.

In mythology, the goddess Demeter, sister of Zeus, had a daughter by her brother called Persephone.

She was abducted by Hades god of the underworld, who took her to the depths of the earth.

Demeter went to the most remote and isolated lands of the planet in search of her abducted daughter, the cries of despair turned to hatred and the land produced no more fruit, after pleas and deception her beloved daughter was returned to her, but only for a portion of time.

beloved daughter was returned to her, but only for a portion of time, thus the Greeks explain the cycle of the seasons, in autumn and winter the beautiful Persephone returns to the realm of the dead to her husband, in spring and summer she re-embraces her mother who warms the earth and gives her fruit. Castor and Pollux also represent the great sacrifice dictated by brotherly love, the two sons of Zeus and Leda, were twins, one divine and the other earthly. During a fight Castor dies, his brother decides to die too, their father gave them both semi-immortality, but by giving them a semi-life, one day Castor lives one day and Pollux the next, for eternity. These protagonists are reinterpreted by Andrea Chisesi through the Hellenistic work now in the Prado Museum. By Bernini the Rape of Proserpina in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

The Greeks called philia the highest sentiment of love, which translated means friendship, the one which classical literature conveys through the story of two friends, Eisponelas and Aitas, frequent visitors to the temple of Apollo Amicleo.

frequenters of the temple of Apollo Amicleo; they asked God to hear their prayer: ‘may time never cancel friendship. time may never cancel the friendship between them", Apollo seeing the two young people embraced with deep and sincere affection, he decided to turn them into a plant, precious and full of fruit, from which the man would benefit to the point of making it indispensable, the olive tree.

The story of the two philosophers Damon and Finzia from Syracuse, a city under the tyrant Dionysius. Finzia was sentenced to death because he was not respectful towards the king, accepting his sentence he asked to be allowed to say goodbye to his family, his friend Damon offered himself as a prisoner so that he could grant his wish, pledging his very life if Finzia did not return. Dionysius impressed by the value of the deep friendship between the two philosophers, he not only forgave them but wanted to become their friend.

Love dictated by passion and romance is called eros, the protagonists in the collection by Andrea Chisesi are Apollo and Daphne, representing par excellence the turmoil of love and of desire.

Apollo had killed a python with a bow and arrow, met Eros God of love, son of Venus intent on building a new bow and mockingly began to offend him, the young Eros deeply thought of revenge, so he shot two arrows, one aimed at Apollo who made him fall in love Apollo, who made him fall madly in love with the young nymph Daphne, and the other aimed at the girl, imbued with contempt and horror.

The divine Apollo searched for his nymph throughout the woods, distraught and in pain, when he found her she frightened began to flee; as the god approached, Daphne invoked her mother Gaea, who transformed her into a laurel plant.

laurel, from that moment on the laurel is recognised as a sacred plant in Olympus.

And finally platonic agape love, the protagonist is still Eros called by Venus to make beautiful Psyche, an earthly maiden, to fall in love with the lowest and most despicable man on earth, thereby satiating his jealousy dictated by her incomparable beauty, Eros at the sight of the maiden fell fell in love with her and decided to take her to his castle, denying his identity he asked her never to see his face.

One night, driven by curiosity, Psyche tried to illuminate her lover's face, thus disappointing him.

Angry Eros abandoned her, Psyche asked Venus for help, who decided to help her on condition that she passed four impossible tests.

The maiden succeeded in the trials and thus found her lost love, in this case her feeling is not driven by beauty nor eroticism, but by pure feeling.

Not far from our conception of love, the myth of love synthesises earthly emotions placing them on the pedestal of idolatry, the more intense the intersection of souls, the more poignant is the loss of the loved one.

The banner of our choices and lack of reasoning in the dictates of what we apparently we cannot seemingly codify, becomes a beacon on which we all depend, a unique possibility of survival, as is drinking and eating, so is love.