Flash Art uses cookies strictly necessary for the proper functioning of the website, for its legitimate interest to enhance your online experience and to enable or facilitate communication by electronic means. This short novel narrates the final summer of a painter named Klingsor, who lives with restlessness and passion, and is particularly enchanted by nature β a nature that also captivated Hesse and inspired his art.
The Ticino landscape, which Hesse explored as one of its early tourists and where he lived until he died in , inspired many of his watercolors on paper. Curated by Vittoria Matarrese, who collaborated with the Historical Archive of the City of Lugano and the Archive of Parc Scherrer, the show examines the transformation of the region into a bucolic attraction for foreigners in the first half of the twentieth century, making it the Arcadia of the title.
The exhibition begins with postcards from the collaborating archives, illustrating how the Ticino landscape and its perception changed over half a century. Early postcards from β depict alpine landscapes without roads along the lake. By the s and s, exotic trees and palms appeared β although these palms were artificially transplanted and not native.
The dry, almost dead palms symbolize climate change and the failure of imported plants to adapt. At the same time, the postcards also show how Greek temples, with their characteristic decorations, began to be constructed in Ticino during those years.
This trend reflects the classical idea of Arcadia, marked by a fascination with ruins and antiquity. The columns deflate over time, symbolizing the fleeting nature of ruins: the ruin will be ruined. Made from wax with pigments from marble sourced in Peccia and Arzo and mounted on steel, the statue was completed on site due to its complexity.
