Pino La Barbera

Cattedrale di Messina

Name: Cattedrale di Messina
SKU: 6596
Price: 700.00 EUR
Availability: InStock

Paintings Straw threads

Single artwork

€700,00

Description by the artist

I come from Castronovo, inland Sicily and I grew up with the colors of grain: from the green mountains of spring to the golden yellow ocean of summer. And from the ears of grain I invented my art. Artwork made with straw threads (grain and oats). Unique technique in the world. Straw threads glued on light blue or blue cardboard, background made by hand in watercolor. The shading and depths are made using the same straw with lighter and darker shades and gradations.

Details and dimensions

Materials: Straw threads

Dimensions (cm): Height 40, Width 30

Weight (kg): 1.350

Handcrafted in Sicily

The artwork in the Sicilian culture

By the Governance of Sicilian Artisan Foundation

241 BC, Sicily was conquered by the Romans who replaced the Greeks by making Zeus, Jupiter, and so on for the other gods of Olympus. For Catone the Censor the island was “the granary of Rome“. Sicily alone exported about 3 million quintals per year to the capital. Even today, especially the center of the island, is an endless expanse of grain, as if it were sea, which makes it particularly characteristic landscape: deep green in winter and spring, and blinding yellow in the summer months.

The Cathedral of Messina is located in Piazza Duomo and stands on the site where initially was built a Christian temple by Belisarius, in 530. In Islamic times was probably transformed into a mosque and then resume the function of Christian church in the twelfth century. Beautiful the prospectus with the soaring clock tower, a series of mullioned windows with three lights and a wonderful portal of the beginning of 1400. The central nave, inside, has wooden trusses.

(photo)Messina, cathedral, interior view of the crypt, 1835

Paints with straw threads

Pino La Barbera

“Art is for me is the expression of ones inner self. Many people do not know that they have potential within them and therefore do not manifest their knowledge and their attitudes. It’s a pity"

The Governance also suggests

The objective of the Governance is both to safeguard the traditions and ancient crafts of the people of Sicily, and to sustain economically the Artisans and the Artists, both the real ethno-anthropologists of the country.