Vincenzo Guerrazzi, from the 70s to today: which message? 
by Antonio Rossin –

Vincenzo Guerrazzi, from the 70s to today: which message? 
by Antonio Rossin –               Genova, Loggia della Mercanzia, November 18, 2005 

     To fully understand the position of the Italian painter and writer Vincenzo Guerrazzi, we must first hold, that communication has two main functions.  Each message, like that in a painting or in a book or in a sms, expresses two distinct, but fused together, functions of communication.  One function is transversal, horizontal, peer-to-peer, and is made with information and comparison. The other function, called “of Command” concerns the vertical control and establishes a hierarchy among the speakers.  These two functions are the same we studied in schools under the name of dialectics, in which the horizontal function concerns the discussion and comparison of the thesis-antithesis leading to awareness, and the vertical function is that of the synthesisand leads towards  operational choising. 
                  It is far easier to talk about the artist Guerrazzi Guerrazzi than the writer, because the message of his paintings is immediately readable at a glance, while the understanding of the message of his books takes a longer reading time.  Yet in both cases, what is his message? About Guerrazzi painter, it was told everything and all the opposite: realist painter, political painter satirist painter.  But I prefer to call him a dialectical painter, because in the space of one only canvas he easily mixes together  right and left, capital and labor and the constant, uncomfortable presence of the factory worker to represent the final user, who should be able to get a synthesis and make a conscious choice of responsible action.
It is quite understandable, therefore, that the immediate aspect of Guerrazzi’s message that emerges at a first sight, concerns the horizontal function of communication, and it is equally understandable that to put together thesis and antithesis in one same context leads to open a summary, a review, and this is precisely the vertical function of the message.  No wonder then, if in such a context critics  always concluded that the paintings of Guerrazzi “make people think.”  This is thus the historical value of his message: he calls loudly people to think and reflect.  We, who belong to the role of the final users even though in the role of cultural mediators, have heard this noise and answered his call.  This is why we are here on this evening at the Loggia della Mercanzia, and look with great pleasure to the many speakers at the debate this evening, especially young people, because they are historically the true final user of the situation. 
     But one’s thinking requires one’s hard labour, and there are still too many people, even among the youth, who try to escape the labour to think, to build their own synthesis, to assume directly upon themselves the responsibility for an action choice, so they ask “the others” for doing it for them.  But what do the others answer?  Maybe, the choice they propose deals with a policy of a “grand alliance” of the summit, placed as a synthesis of the dialectic bipolarism, to solve thevexistential problems of the final users of today and tomorrow?  I think it is no way, and see this solution as a step backwards.  In fact, if that were the political response to the people’s needs – whose noise Guerrazzi reported so aptly – the History teaches that it is a very old matter. Let me remember the renown Italian writer Alessandro Manzoni who, in the “Adelchi’s choir” spoke of the “recent new noises “, really the arrival of a strong man to fight the lords and masters who had put the people to rot in burned forges and grinding grooves “wet with servant sweat,” Those people lifted their heads listening to to fte noise of freedom, but very soon realized that the oppressors of both parties ended up doing alliance and remained both to weigh on people’s necks.  That is, there is a great analogy   between Manzoni and Guerrazzi, between the grinding forges of the burning factory of the second, among the “oppressed people” of that time and the factory workers and the many unemployed young people of today, between the “recent new rumor” of two centuries ago and the message brought in Guerrazzi’s paintings and books.  The story always repeats itself. 
     No, dear young people: no kind of synthesis and choice droppen top-down can fulfil your interests.  Better you think of a choice of your own, even though this thinking is hard, but let it be a labour of your own, coming from grassroots bottom-up.  Let’s only hope you were able to express yourselves in terms of reflection and proposals: not in the terms only, even though sacrosanct, of a protest. Antonio Rossin –
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