ART
by Maximillien de Lafayette
Vincenzo
balsamo: the Italian living legend…
In
the late 1964, Balsamo became a
father for the second
time. His second son Francesco is born. Too many wonderful things are
happening in his life. Business is good. Children are healthy. The family is
secured. His fame is blooming. He is exhibiting worldwide. What else could he
expect? Momentino!! He is not expecting a thing. His wife is!! A third child
is on his way. Balsamo becomes a father for the third time with a lovely
beautiful girl named Antonella! Well, everything is fine now. Life seems to
shine over the shoulder of Balsamo. Mrs. Balsamo is proud of her husband. The
maestro is in full gear. The three bambini are happy, they are too little to
worry about life and frankly they care less…
HOW DO I SEE, HOW DO I FEEL
BALSAMO ART?
With the beginning of 1965-1966, Balsamo’s style commenced to
acquire a different plane, a multi-complex definition, an intricate complexity
in compositions, interpretation and extra-dimensional structure. More vivid
and vibrant colors began to infiltrate his palette and through an immense
presence of wealth and rebellious strokes of light, multi-layered tones of
shades and most visibly, an unlimited themes treatment with lyrical conceptual
visualization and lyrical intellect conquered the landscape of his canvases.
This giant metamorphosis transmigrated Balsamo to a higher and
a much more challenging aesthetic standard and quest for supreme perfection
and harmony between the seen and the felt, the visible and the unexpected, the
pure elementary shadows of beauty and sophisticated rebellious cubist
compositions…a new vision of a parallel word of untouched and unexplored
artistic dimensions began to haunt Balsamo, to challenge his reality, to
delightfully confuse our intelligence and finally to mesmerize us and tease us
with scenes depicted from romantically and nostalgically crafted forms and
suggestions, all within the world of Balsam.
Photo:
EVOCAZIONE COMPOSITIVA, 1979.
Sometimes, it is a country
landscape, an Italian hill, a forgotten narrow village street, some other
time, it is a world within a world nicknamed by Balsamo as “Romantic World” or
“Romantic Atmosphere”, and more than once, Balsamo hits us with his magic rod
and sink us in an ocean of magic and a tempest of one million colors, visions
and compositions he grouped under “GRANDE COMPOSIZIONE”, the “Great
Composition”. This magical metamorphosis will continue throughout the years.
His style becomes more expressive, more complex, yet it comes closer and
closer to our heart and our soul. His style did not change. The expression did
and this is how art acquires wisdom, maturity, definition and a place in our
imagination, fear, joy, hope, anxiety, struggle, fights, perseverance and love
for beauty. The art of Balsamo is big, bigger than the universe we know, the
universe that we doubt sometimes, the universe that captivates us and scares
us. So is the art of Balsamo. It is captivating, beautiful, warm,
affectionate, blooming. But, those are the attributes of danger. But, who did
say that art is safe? That art is tranquil? That art is holy and sacred? That
art is comforting? Did Gods talk to us? Did the creator of the universe reveal
the intimacy and secret of his strength and creation? If not, so do not expect
the art of Balsamo to be safe and simply entertaining, because Balsamo art is
a blend of the divine secrets of beauty, magic, danger, creativity, the real,
the unreal and beyond…For the Art of Balsamo is above us…For the art of
Balsamo is so close to the creator of the universe…For the art of Balsamo
shelters the known and the unknown, the visible and the hidden, the real and
the phantasmagoric…
It is an art where the mind, the soul and the mortal flesh meet
and rejoice, because in the inner and outer limits of Balsamo art, you breath
freedom, beauty, magic, fantasy, colors and colors and colors and what colors
do not tell us…Friends, do not tell me that Art is made by mortal humans…Do
not tell me that art is created by hands, fingers and brushes and metallic
tubes containing colors and chemicals…Do not try to tell me this, if I am
still looking at Balsamo paintings.