Who hasn’t asked at least once in their lives if the Kingdom of Heaven really exists and what it would be like? It’s happened to me several times and being a “dubious believer”, I have often asked this question. As time passes, this curiosity grows, probably from fear as death draws closer. So I took paper and pen and I tried to show what, according to me, the Kingdom of Heaven could be like. Attending to the traditions, dogma and religion they instilled into me … oh, excuse me…I wanted to say “taught” me, I see it this way. Fear, in other words, “Hell”, in the centre, so terrible as to make us all strive to be good, and to the left, Purgatory, full of souls prostrate and penitent, waiting for their destiny,, who,at the end of the “tunnel”, waits to show them the way. Finally, to the right, Paradise, empty yes, but not of light, a light that penetrates as it can only do in Paradise… But if you look up you see white colonnades that hide the true Kingdom of Heaven, a Kingdom where according to my belief, we all must go…. But maybe it’s not right that if in life we have made one, or maybe two mistakes, we must then live in an eternal inferno. It’s also true that they have always taught us to forgive, therefore I hope that this Kingdom of Heaven truly exists. I hope I haven’t inconvenienced or annoyed the “head of the house” who stands waiting at the centre of my drawing with a trident in hand...I don't want that. He will wait for me in vain!
My idea was to tell the story of who we are and above all of “what we are made of” in the language that I know best: the language of ‘design’ (from left to right): An hourglass to measure the passing of time, a peacock, as we all strive to be beautiful in some way, a globe representing our innate desire to travel and to learn, snakes because as humans, we all experience fear in life, a cage, as big as the world, but open underneath to allow us to escape and fly away and a bird in flight to confirm this desire for liberty. In the bottom right, opposite the hourglass, a chalice representing the desire for an eternal life, and close by, hatching eggs , a symbol of birth. Thinking about how each and every one of us has a different character, I decided to draw just one aspect of our character, “timidity” - a cat hiding in a vase. Then in life there are scales that weigh and measure us for what we are, and quite often they don’t speak the truth. To illustrate this, one plate is empty whilst the other is full of fruit, but the arrow remains at “0”, to signify that the judgments made are not always correct or true. Finally, a table overladen with what we cannot live without: food … Finally, there is a personality amongst the others, but instead of being an attentive “observer”, this figure could represent a certain ‘someone’ who watches and controls us ….the head of the house?!! I refer to the cat, who behind that cage and the fear of the snakes, watches you wherever you go…..try moving around whilst watching him…..he always watches you… always!!!!
The spring arrives and very slowly gives way to a hot and bright summer… but we don’t have time to get warm as the sun slowly weakens and little by little goes out until we find ourselves in autumn with a pullover on our shoulders…and then once again in a freezing winter…
With my undoubted ignorance, I have often asked myself “did the war machines of Leonardo ever see battle?” So, with lots of ‘courage’, I tried to imagine and design an unlikely battle…and show the surprise of the soldiers and of Leonardo himself!
Thinking of the “City of the Future”, I’m certain that a city of “cathedrals and secret places” still exists hidden in some place. Go in and walk all of its hidden streets and discover it’s antique secret places, but you never get lost or forget the way …it’s as if Pollicino has marked your way so that you can find your way out again and live in the present, maybe in your city of the future!
At some point in our lives we have all been “tightrope walkers”: a balancing act intent on keeping a love, a friendship, work or an ideal going…
What could be worse than to know that you will be locked up in a cell for the rest of your life? This is the story of a man who uses the only thing he has left to continue to live: hope. He meditates on an unlikely escape and dreams of freedom using everything that his fantasy can give him: a telescope to see far away, a book to describe the ways to countries as if he were a courageous explorer, maps of the stars to keep him on the right track, Tarot cards to point him to his destiny and an ever smiling Joker. However, a monkey always appears in the dream to bring him back to reality. He looks at the man as if to say. “Where do you think you are going? What do you see when you look up to the right?” But HOPE never dies and the man dreams on….! The metaphor of all of this is represented by the two small mice that watch him with an ironic smile, as if to say “the things in life that you have snubbed or offended could one day one day turn to you, like us, and say, ‘I’m here too, but I can leave when I want to!’ ”
All that I have imagined to have eaten, all that I have eaten and is no more…the best and most precious foods given to us by the earth and that our mothers have prepared for us… but today, good, genuine and fresh produce no longer exists and neither do the loving hands that once caressed it as if it was the ‘food of the gods’.
Who hasn’t at least once in their life heard of a ferryman called “Caronte” or of a certain Dante Alighieri, who wrote about him in a comedy as Divine as it is Infernal? The clever thing, in my view, on reading the Divine Comedy, is Dante’s description of hell and the souls that Caronte transports across an abyss of desperation…so with respect and maybe with some fear, I tried to depict my image of Caronte and above all I lingered not so much on the desperation as much as on the tranquility of the Devil, who sits calmly waiting for the condemned souls, as if to say “there’s no point feeling desperate… after all, everybody has to pass by here”.
The struggle of good against evil – the devil with his black rays and the shafts of light that penetrate the men…..men that wash their clothes in the blood of the battle….forever.
…in a world where danger and fear is everywhere, there exists a city where you can still live in joy and happiness…it’s the city of the acrobats! But if you look carefully in the lower left corner, you will see a girl holding onto a rope… if she lets go everyone will fall….the significance of this is that we must be together to be happy. A happy man alone in this life is never a truly happy man!
Once a girl said to me: “dear Luigi, in life, everything is just a question of chemistry…” I thought about this and after a while I met her again and I gave her this design….I’m not going to tell you what happened next (but Kate will)!!