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the start of the Strada Comunale Carriona di Colonnato click photo to enlarge |
Leaving the small community of Bedizzano, Italy, into the direction of Colonnato, the road winds itself up in hairpin bends into the Apuan Alps, a mountain range in northern Tuscany.
At the third bend there is a side road that is flanked by numerous sculptures, as shown in above and below screenprints (September 2016, Streetview). This spot is locally known as Mortarola.
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a little further on the same strada click photo to enlarge |
Life and works
The series of sculptures, scattered along the road, was created by Mario del Sarto (1925-2021), who.was born in a rural family. Already at the age of eight, after school he helped his father, who was a shepherd in the area of the Apuan Alps.
De Sarto himself for many years worked as a carpenter, until he could get a job at the Ferrovia marmifera di Carrara, the railroad built between 1876 and 1890, that was used to transport marble blocks from the mountains of the Apuan Alps to the Mediterranean sea nearby the community of Carrara, a 22-kilometer track that ran over many bridges. This railroad was disbanded in 1964.
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this picture and the next five courtesy of Isabella.m (Flickr) |
In the 1970s, when de Sarto was in his mid forties, without any artistic training. he became active as a sculptor, first in the field of woodworking, later in making sculptures, mainly using the the blocks of white marble that he previously transported by train and which made Carrara so famous.
He had his workshop and living house along the aforementioned Strada Comunale Carriona di Colonnato and gradually the sides of that street became filled with the many creations he made.
About his way of working he said that he would let the marble speak for itself.
When he started working, he had no models in mind, not even in his imagination, so, as he said: "The figures must appear themselves, as if by magic".
For his sculptures he used either marble that naturally comes out of the mountain or remnants that remained after the processing of marble blocks. His sculptures often had a historical or biblical background.
A great work with a historical impact is the one called La fontana del sapere (The fountain of knowledge), a combination of well known characters and memorials from the area, such as the locomotives and the route of the marble railway, as well as the work of the miners.
Started in the 1970s, del Sarto, who meanwhile was in his fifties but on the video below still had a lively appearance, has enriched the place where he lived with hundreds of sculptures, stand alone or united in ensembles. It is one large open air museum.
The area around this site has been hit several times by floods, which in particular have caused damage to the sculptures stored at the rear of del Sarto's workshop. But these natural disasters have not erased the great impression made by the creations that are still on display.
Sculptures by Del Sarto are also found elsewhere in Italy, like there is a work located near the cemetery of San Giuliano in Puglia that evokes the memory of the earthquake in that place in 2002, that killed 27 children in a kindergarten.
Mario del Sarto passed away in the spring of 2021.
Documentation
* Article (September 2010) by Renato Bruschi in newspaper Toscana Oggi
* Article (June 2015) on the website of Francesco Galli
* Article by Castanza Borsari, "Mario del Sarte. Una vida esculpida en el ármol", in webzine Bric-a-Brac, Spring 2021, p 46-62
* Article (undated) on website Corte delle Perle* Entry (undated) on website Costruttori di Babele
* Entry (undated) by Gabriele Mina on website SPACES
Video
* Video (YouTube, 9'23", October 2018) Mario Del Sarto e la strada d'arte fra le cave (Mario Del Sarto and the art road between the quarries), nr 4 in a series by Costruttori di Babele (in Italian)
Mario del Sarto
La strada con sculture
locality known as Mortarola
on the road from Bedizzano to Colonnato
near Carrara, Tuscany, Italy
The beauty brings tears to my eyes. I would visit Italy just to see his works.
ReplyDeleteWe met Mario in 2003 while traveling up the “marble”mountains. My husband had stopped the car on the road because he saw the sculptures on the street. I had refused to get out of the car at first but soon after my husband had turned the corner he came back to the car asking me to come see. ,. On the heels of my husband was Mario himself. I’ll never forget him crying out “Virginia, Virginia. Veni qua! “. He gave us a tour of his studio in the back of his home. It’s so happened that it was his lunchtime, and he invited us to sit with him for a while. I still have a little piece of marble that he gave me to remember him by. .
ReplyDeleteOn the last ever trip with my late wife in 2002, we chanced upon this hillside of sculpture and had to stop and explore. We found the artist and had him to ourselves for almost an hour. `How apt that the world's most famous marble quarries should harbour someone with such a prodigious commitment to that medium. He was certainly no Bernini, but his output taken collectively was astonishing, and individually had its own presence. We bought a modest little relief of the virgin, hoping she might intercede on our behalf. We came away enriched, and especially by the moto chiselled into the lintel above his front door. "Lavorando mi Riposo"
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