Discovering «The secrets of colour»

Tired of the summer TV desert? Exasperated by the surrounding stupidity? A substantial help can come from Rai Scuola. It’s not the channel you usually think of first. Instinctively it is confined to a particular user, the one that spends a good part of the year in the classroom and, compared to the adult world, has a life of its own made up of other things and with other names. But that’s not necessarily the case. In fact, Rai Scuola offers very interesting content even for those who have long since left the classroom. He disseminates various topics with a cordial attitude and scientific rigor. Particularly fascinating is “The secrets of color” recently revived. An enthralling journey through the history of artistic techniques. The episodes are all to be rediscovered on RaiPlay.

These are four distinct cycles that dialogue with each other sharing the structure of the story, the setting of the discourse, the elegance of the packaging. Ten episodes are dedicated to mural painting, ten to panel and canvas painting, five to mosaic and another five to terracotta. The program, curated by Daniela Delfini, has a balanced and compelling structure. It combines excerpts from ancient treatises that are read addressing the viewer directly. They contain teachings for producing the colors to be used by oneself and secrets for perfecting particular artistic techniques. Art historians and academics illustrate the fundamental nodes of the different techniques, moving in time and space, with insights into some centers which, in this sense, appear particularly significant. We therefore travel from Bologna to Palermo, from Florence to Rome, from Naples to Ravenna… Splendid video footage allows us to get a realistic idea of ​​the environments visited, getting very close to the works and observing them in detail, to an extent unimaginable without the support of technology . Very accurate shots vary the points of view. They are combined with faces and amphorae, painted plates, wall frescoes. They reveal the detail and, in themselves, build a further autonomous communicative plan that stimulates curiosity, inspires spontaneous involvement, raises many questions and reflections even in the less expert spectator of the subject. This is a sure sign of a successful dissemination.

“The secrets of color” explores, investigates, describes, gradually dwelling on specific issues. «The mosaic from the Baroque to the Napoleonic era», for example, or the medieval one, or the late antique and Byzantine one. Or «terracotta in antiquity», «varnishes in painting on wood and canvas». Some themes are particularly engaging. One can be seduced by the «gilding technique» or admire «Crucifixes, reredos and majesty» with a vague sense of bewilderment. Otherwise, one can feel enchanted by the «Stacchi and tearing of frescoes». The spectator also has the very happy occasion and the concrete possibility of immersing himself in the “construction site” of Michelangelo, Raffaello, Giotto. And, once again, to remain speechless in the presence of «Leonardo’s experiments». Another trump card of the program is represented by visits to the restoration laboratories. Here professional figures, endowed with extraordinary competence and enviable manual skill, show the various ways of intervening for the recovery and conservation of the artefacts. Interventions that to the layman’s eye seem to act on subjects who are no longer recoverable. And instead… there is something magical in those infallible hands that put pieces back together, managing to reveal the original shape of an object. And, with careful and scrupulous cleaning operations, they reawaken golden halos to their lost splendour. The restorers explain, moment by moment, what they are doing. Looking at them everything seems easy. And this is also part of the game. Those wizards in white coats are themselves de facto artists. Seated behind a table cluttered with brushes and bowls full of the necessary materials, they work with extreme skill. Their salvages are, in a sense, new creations. Watching and admiring their expert action is an undoubted privilege.