U tammureddu
€230,00
Description by the artist
The work is inspired by one of the Sicilian icons known throughout the world and an element of folklore of our island: u tammureddu, a famous percussion instrument used in traditional tarantella. Golden aluminum chain with pendants: sacred heart emblem, red pearls and lemons.The Sicilian tambourine is covered in goatskin and hand-painted with a Sicilian cart wheel and lemons and finished with red passamenterie with final pendants of red Majorcan pearls.
The artwork in the Sicilian culture
A concentration of Sicily in this work: u tammureddu (Sicilian for tambourine), one of the typical instruments of Sicilian folklore that accompanies the tarantella, the characteristic dance of the island. U carrettu siciliano (Sicilian for cart, in this work here represented by a wheel), was the means of transport par excellence in the past centuries of the Sicilian people: both rich and poor. Basically it is a sort of wooden wheelbarrow pulled by horses. The peculiarity of the Sicilian cart was given by the sides of this structure, the sides, in which was almost always represented a scene of the Opera of the Puppets, representation of Sicilian puppets extremely popular since the seventeenth century (the cart itself was born around that time). Also, the cart was often very colorful in all its spaces, whether it was wheels, lateral woods, rods, etc.. Even the horse that pulled it, usually festive, was harnessed with bright colors. Needless to say, its more or less artistic opulence marked its social status. In this work also appear lemons, typical plant imported during the Arabic domination (IX-XI century).
(photo) Two Sicilians dressed in typical costumes, dancing the tarantella. The tambureddu is often played by the women