II. For Francesco De Francesco
by Franco Vaccari
Federico Zeri states that there is no other country that has such a large number of people with multiple unexpressed latent talents as Italy does. One might think that these abilities enrich those who possess them; often, however, they provoke embitterment and regret for what could have been. However, there are those who, despite the indifference or hostility of the environment, instead of giving up, remain faithful to their vocations and do not let the dialogue with the voices that drive them end. The others— those who give up—come to believe that these voices are background noises, parasitic voices which, when they surface, bring confusion, disturbance and illusions; but those who resist sense a tone of truth in them that must be witnessed at all costs. This—emblematically—is the case of Francesco De Francesco; by profession a cardiologist, but like many other doctors, from Cecov to Célin, from Tobino to Burri, also possessed by the demon of art and, in particular, by that of painting.
De Francesco’s production is remarkable both for the number of works and for the quantity of techniques adopted and mastered by a great expert: oil, etching, drypoint, lithography, mizzotint, drawing. It is all carried out with surprising consistency and with a continuous desire for research. Despite the isolation in which he found himself, his work has an underlying consonance with leading research of recent years, especially with that of the so-called “anachronists,” at the same time, it is within the tradition of that island-continent that is Sicily, his homeland. This can be affirmed both by observing the meticulous rendering of details, and by the iconographic repertoire where realistic data mixes with reminiscences of the classical world. But it is the task of others to investigate the technical aspects of De Francesco's work. I am interested in the emergence of the myths of classicism not as forms devoid of meaning, but as forces still alive and operating in everyday life. This aspect, before being the expression of a precise individuality, is an anthropological fact that characterizes a culture.
Observing the paintings of De Francesco it is clear that the Gods are still at home in Sicily. In what other country is it completely natural to see the repetition of the Rape of Proserpina in an escape of love during a village festival. An episode that elsewhere could be liquidated with a bleak news story here reveals a mythical dimension that redeems it from the limbo of the pathological and the criminal. Of “anachronism” in De Francesco's work there is this trust in images that have distant roots, just when other artists practice insignificance, they aim for nothing, producing images emptied of imagination. But even in this we must see a symptom of something collective rather than the manifestation of a purely personal sensitivity. Hillman says in Essay on Pan: “Behind and within all Greek culture – in art, thought and action – is its polycentric mythic background. But the Greece to which we turn is not literal; it includes all periods and all localities, from Asia Minor to Sicily. This Greece refers to a psychic region. Greece (Sicily) remains as an inner landscape rather than a geographical landscape, as the metaphor of the imaginal kingdom that houses the archetypes in the form of Gods. We step out of temporal thinking and historicity, and we move towards an imaginal region, where the Gods are and not when they were or will be."
De Francesco’s production is remarkable both for the number of works and for the quantity of techniques adopted and mastered by a great expert: oil, etching, drypoint, lithography, mizzotint, drawing. It is all carried out with surprising consistency and with a continuous desire for research. Despite the isolation in which he found himself, his work has an underlying consonance with leading research of recent years, especially with that of the so-called “anachronists,” at the same time, it is within the tradition of that island-continent that is Sicily, his homeland. This can be affirmed both by observing the meticulous rendering of details, and by the iconographic repertoire where realistic data mixes with reminiscences of the classical world. But it is the task of others to investigate the technical aspects of De Francesco's work. I am interested in the emergence of the myths of classicism not as forms devoid of meaning, but as forces still alive and operating in everyday life. This aspect, before being the expression of a precise individuality, is an anthropological fact that characterizes a culture.
Observing the paintings of De Francesco it is clear that the Gods are still at home in Sicily. In what other country is it completely natural to see the repetition of the Rape of Proserpina in an escape of love during a village festival. An episode that elsewhere could be liquidated with a bleak news story here reveals a mythical dimension that redeems it from the limbo of the pathological and the criminal. Of “anachronism” in De Francesco's work there is this trust in images that have distant roots, just when other artists practice insignificance, they aim for nothing, producing images emptied of imagination. But even in this we must see a symptom of something collective rather than the manifestation of a purely personal sensitivity. Hillman says in Essay on Pan: “Behind and within all Greek culture – in art, thought and action – is its polycentric mythic background. But the Greece to which we turn is not literal; it includes all periods and all localities, from Asia Minor to Sicily. This Greece refers to a psychic region. Greece (Sicily) remains as an inner landscape rather than a geographical landscape, as the metaphor of the imaginal kingdom that houses the archetypes in the form of Gods. We step out of temporal thinking and historicity, and we move towards an imaginal region, where the Gods are and not when they were or will be."