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| this picture and the next three: screenprints from Google Streetview |
The mosaic-decorated house pictured above is located in the small Italian village of Blessano, which is part of the municipality of Basiliano, located northeast of Venice.
Life and work
Pietro Aurelio Antonutti (1919-1990) was born in Basiliano. He married and the couple got children. The family lived in a house along Via Pantianicco in the small village of Blessano, part of the municipality of Basiliano.
He had a great deal of manual dexterity, which came in handy not only in the various jobs he had, but especially once he retired and started to focus on all kinds of artistic activities.
His retirement started in late 1950s, when he was forty years old and had health problems due to the heavy work in a quarry in France where he worked for a while.
Not being a man to do nothing, he and a son set to work in the house to provide the interior of the house with new home-made furniture.
Antonutti also started making paintings, and thanks to the son, who attended an arts and crafts school specializing in mosaic and terrazzo; he became familiar with the technical side of mosaic making.
This led to the first major project with which he came out.
Between 1975 and 1981 he decorated the 10 by 7 meter facade of his house with mosaic scenes.
Using colored silicon plates crumbled into small pieces, he gradually filled the facade with a large number of individual scenes, as shown in the accompanying images.
There are images of Venice, as below, and other landscapes, as above, but also all kinds of religious scenes, and images of family members, friends and acquaintances.
When the decoration of the facade was completed in 1981, Antonutti devoted himself to making several standalone creations, such as a wooden nativity scene (gifted to Pope John II), a depiction of the flight into Egypt of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus (in the church of the city of Udine), a representation of the last meal of Jesus and his disciples (in the council chamber of Basiliano) and of the fourteen stations along the way of the cross (in the parish of Blessano).
Pietro Aurelio Antonutti died in 1990 at the age of 71.
His family tries to maintain the mosaic decorations on the facade of the family home as best as possible
Documentation
* Article with photos on the website
Costruttori di Babele *
Article by Giada Carraro on the website
Bric-à-Brac Italia
Pietro Aurelio Antonutti
Mosaic decorated facade of his house
Via Pantianicco
Blessano, part of Basiliano, dept Udine, region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
can be seen from the road
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