A lively blend of art history and travelogue covering the legacy of Carrara
marble, the author's Italian roots and one of the greatest artists who ever
lived.
The Italian town of Carrara, where Scigliano has family ties, has become
synonymous with marble. It's a place that doesn't figure in the guidebooks:
Carrara is an industrial place, "raw, rough-edged, and quirky . . . whose
residents do something other than cater to tourists." Situated at the foot
of the Apuan Alps, a giant block of fissured marble, it was once the center
of the world's stone trade, though other countries--Brazil, India and,
overwhelmingly, China--have since overtaken Italy. ("Italy is finished," an
Indian matter-of-factly tells Scigliano.) Indeed, it is cheaper now for an
Italian to purchase a piece of white Carraran marble, ship it to China to
have it carved into a gravestone and place it in an Italian cemetery than it
is to have the work done domestically, a condition that has driven the
economy of Carrara, in the otherwise wealthy province of Tuscany, into the
ground. The author connects the story of Carrara marble to Michelangelo, who
favored it as a material: Just as there is an overpowering, elemental
quality to the work of Michelangelo, exemplified in the magnificent David he carved from a block of unwanted Carraran stone, so there is an
indomitable quality to the Carrarans, who have long been characterized by
obdurate resistance to whatever powers happen to be. Fittingly, Michelangelo
himself, as is well-documented, wasn't so easy to get along with. The
Carraran quality of independence endures, but other differences are
disappearing as new influences swamp the town: Many stoneworkers, one tells
Scigliano, are devotees of yoga, and the clipped local dialect is
increasingly the speech of the old as standard Italian enters via
television.
An affectionate, gracefully written portrait of a little-known place that
has suffered much pain to bring the world great beauty. (July 15, 2005)
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