On perennial enchantment, two simple thoughts on Emanuele Luzzati

Gianni Nuti

Fifteen years ago I had the honour of having a booklet of mine richly illustrated by Emanuele Luzzati. The book was dedicated to the parents of new-born children, to help them communicate through music. The arrangement was made easier by the fact that Luzzati and the late Councillor for Culture of the City of Turin, Fiorenzo Alfieri, were friends. Inspired by genuine feelings, they had both decided to participate for free in this project, There were plenty of ideas, imagination, thoughts on humanity, and on the beautiful things we are called to do in our lives, despite everything.

During that short period of time, I got simple phrases of communion from Emanuele in the folds of deep silence, inhabited by an attitude of vigilant, acute and generous listening. These words would resound between us and the walls vibrating with drawings and music, in a harmonious and peaceful way. His words have settled in my memory, forever.

Harmony and peace are the stage where Luzzati's work has been played for decades. His characters defy the laws of gravity, proportions and motion. They distance themselves from visible reality to reveal it even to the most stubbornly short-sighted in an astonishing way. These continuous revelations of truth hidden behind the imaginary world generate a total absence of violent energies. Naturally irregular, imprecise and therefore authentic proportionality makes every - apparently useless - detail essential to guarantee balance, and capture everything in an enchanted dimension.

Luzzati offers an imposing representation of the worth of every crooked, sticky, torn, and crumpled difference. The poorest and most neglected humanity is what seems real to us. Fragile childhood is the most persistent life season, which, while uncertain, is very rich in opportunities for transformation, growth, and revelations. Finally, play is the best condition to endure pain. In play, futility is a premise, and time is reversible. It is thus possible to go back and start all over again, while death is made lighter by the feeling of dream, of 'let’s pretend’.

The generous abundance of the opus of this special man has the power to bend the linear flow of time into a roundabout. He would never throw anything away. Moving his thin, long and gnarled hands, he only turned it into an enchanted world. Not only the economy must be circular, also the Earth and Nature move in cycles, through departures and returns, appearances and disappearances: at the centre - like motionless engines - bare, smiling souls like that of the immortal Emanuele Luzzati will live forever. We do need him, still today.

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