Title: INVADIMI SE VUOI
Some symbols have a transcendent meaning in every culture and they art found in expressions of art, religions and so on. Fire and water are commonly accepted as universal symbols.
With the action of burning and like the sun, fire takes the matter and transforms it in light and heat: it is, like water, a symbol of transformation and regeneration. It has the power and the vitality of the sun and, as the sun, the men could control and use it to destroy the darkness in the night.
It needs to be continuously feed, so there is a parallel between fire and life, pointing out that both must feed upon other lives in order to keep alive.
It has a fascinating endless movement that don't respond to the gravity law and his action could be unpreventable and dangerous.
It embraces both good (light-true, vital heat-love) and bad (destruction), because to exist it pretends a sacrificial action (the burning of matter). Fire representing both physical energy (eroticism, solar heat) but also spiritual energy (purification, sublimation).
It brings the material things to their end toward to new immaterial state, so is also related to ultra-life. To pass through fire is symbolic of transcending the human condition
Water is the cradle of the life and everywhere there is water there is life. Fire need to be feed to keep alive, vice versa water sustains the life. On the other hand, also water is a symbol of purification but without destroying. It is a passive element, not powerlessness, that has the capability of adaptability and fluidity. So it could be seen as a feminine principle that it adapts itself to the new life , housing it.
But the water, subject to the power of the gravity, could be violent and explosive that “blows away” everything that it meets.
At the end water and fire are symbols of rites of passage and purification, a cosmic dualism of life and ultra-life.
In the artwork water, the life, sustains the fire, the ultra-life, both with own proper movement. They are complementaries aspects that need each others to exit. Circular concentric “hugs” around the fire symbolizes this and the perfection of the universe, perceptible and transcendent. In the darkness of the night, the flame brings light and the water, as a irregular and not stationary mirror, playing with the colourful reflections.
God, Who for the salvation of the human race has built your greatest mysteries upon this substance, in your kindness hear our prayers and pour down the power of your blessing into this element, prepared by many purifications. May this your creation be a vessel of divine grace to dispel demons and sicknesses, so that everything that it is sprinkled on in the homes and buildings of the faithful will be rid of all unclean and harmful things. Let no pestilent spirit, no corrupting atmosphere, remain in those places: may all the schemes of the hidden enemy be dispelled. Let whatever might trouble the safety and peace of those who live here be put to flight by this water, so that health, gotten by calling Your holy name, may be made secure against all attacks. Through the Lord, amen.
Curator: Pietro Franesi
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