Two thousand and a hundred years ago the Latin poet Titus Lucretius wrote De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) where, through the language of the nature of things he resumed such themes of Epicurean philosophy as the freedom from the explanation of natural phenomena. The proem to the first of six volumes started like this:
Aeneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, alma Venus, caeli subter labentia signa quae mare navigerum, quae terras frugiferentis concelebras, per te quoniam genus omne animantum concipitur visitque exortum lumina solis: te, dea, te fugiunt venti, te nubila caeli adventumque tuum, tibi suavis daedala tellus summittit flores, tibi rident aequora ponti placatumque nitet diffuso lumine caelum.
Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men,
Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars Makest to teem the many-voyaged main And fruitful lands - for all of living things Through thee alone are evermore conceived, Through thee are risen to visit the great sun - Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on, Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away, For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers, For thee waters of the unvexed deep Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
(Translation by William Ellery Leonard)
This is one of the texts from which the artist drew inspiration, as well as from other Latin works such as Ovid's Metamorphoses, Horace's Odes, the Elegies of Tibullus and Catullus' Epigrams and from her daily habit of observing nature from the patio of her studio at the heart of the countryside. Inspiration that led to the creation of her cycle of Imaginary Flowers, in which Brigitta Rossetti slightly diverts from her acknowledged artistic style and creates works aiming to portray the fragility and power of flower stems and shrubs that fly in the face of any law of gravity and point at the skies of the world.
The artistic path becomes more intimate and quieter, held inside a wind-sheltered ideal garden nursed by philosophical thought, where imagination is at the same time set free and restrained. The works thus become sacred botanical icons. There no need to wonder which garden they belong to: they are from the garden of the world which hosts every culture but which is influenced by archetypes of Oriental philosophy.
The artistic path becomes more intimate and quieter, held inside a wind-sheltered ideal garden nursed by philosophical thought, where imagination is at the same time set free and restrained. The works thus become sacred botanical icons. There's no need to wonder which garden they belong to: they are from the garden of the world which hosts every culture but which is influenced by archetypes of Oriental philosophy.
The artist gives each one of her imaginary flowers an as imaginary Latin name. The visitor is advised not to try and look for a scientific origin: the choice of the Latin idiom stems from the artist's need of probing into time and bringing time to a standstill.
Such an attitude is not at all easy these days, yet this is also the role of art, that is to allow serenity, emotion and dream to master time and space. Thus the artist aims at showing that the dread of the soul can be defeated even through a rational observation of nature.
Brigitta Rossetti just looks for and creates such space, which although imaginary becomes concrete, al least for just a fleeting moment.
Her flowers, set at the heart of an ideal garden that seems to be freed from the insurmountable walls that often hide the real beauty of a place, are exposed to people and are evocative of the journeys of the soul, of released passions, of intimate confessions, of written notes and seriously pondered texts.
From the book pages laid on the canvas the flowers send messages: they utter few words but indicate the secret way that leads to the place where nature is celebrated through a language which links past and present.
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