Giuseppe Cavalli

s i zed by Italo Zannier – on the wo rk of Vi n c e n zo Balocchi and, above all, Achille Bologna.
In 1942, the volume 8 fo t o grafi italiani d’ogg i was published by the Istituto Italiano d’Arti Grafiche in Berga m o. The square
fo rm at and black cover with white and red lettering we re simple, refined, and perfectly re flected the contents. In this book
C avalli was described as a “Photographer and artist with gre at intuition, whose still lifes are the result of p a i n s t a k i n g
re s e a rch; they spring from an inner fo rc e. Many photogr a p h e rs compose more or less interesting still lifes, Cavalli ‘cre at e s ’
them.”
L ater he met Federico Ve n d e r, the director of the Milan Photographic Club, whose contribution was vital in setting up
La Bussola. “We believe in photogr a p hy as Art. This modern and sensitive means of ex p ression has ach i eved with the help
o f the tech n o l o gy that ch e m i s t ry and mechanics has placed at our disposal, the fl ex i b i l i t y, richness and eff e c t i veness of a n
i n d ependent and vital language. Hence it is now possible to be poets, the camera can transfo rm reality into fantasy: the prim
a ry, indispensable condition of art.” The aim was to produce photogr a p hy that went beyond mere documentation, then
seen as a ‘blind alley’; the subject had almost no artistic importance and the photographer shot, and could shoot, just wh at
he felt. The La Bussola Manifesto was published in Fe rra n i a, founded in Ja nu a ry 1947, fo l l owing in the fo o t s t eps of the Ivre a
m a gazine Notiziario fo t o gr a f i c o. At that time the editor was the eminent photographer Alfredo Orn a n o. The maga z i n e ’s
scope was wide-ranging, surpassing the limited confines of the photographic clubs and their provincial mindset.
In Fe b r u a ry 1943, Domus published the Annuario di fo t o gra f i a in wh i ch two images by Cavalli we re rep roduced: Wheat
grass and Olive Trees and Blind Doll, rep resenting two seemingly diff e rent aspects of his re s e a rch: on the one hand, a sund
re n ched, silent Mediterranean landscape that was fairly descriptive and stro n gly reminiscent of certain schools; on the
o t h e r, a Surrealist at m o s p h e re with metaphysical ove r t o n e s. In the lat t e r, an eye is placed next to a doll’s head without eye s.
Both are pervaded by the gentle yet powerful sound of s i l e n c e. His photogr a p hy is minimalist, even when it depicts a landscape;
it possesses a rich, all-pervading lyricism that is powerful yet delicat e. Cavalli was able to transfo rm banal, ord i n a ry
objects into ex p ressions of r a re poetry.
At the end of the Fo r t i e s, Cavalli exhibited his wo rk in the foyer of the Piccolo Te at ro in Milan, the prestigious theat re
t h at had just been founded by Paolo Grassi and Giorgio Stre h l e r. He had alre a dy shown his wo rks at the Milan Photogr a p h i c
Club in 1940.
Thus he placed himself at the centre of the fo reign and Italian cultural debate that went beyond the photographic and
artistic dimension to encompass other wo rl d s, other re a l i t i e s. An untiring promoter of c u l t u re, in 1953 he founded Misa, a
p h o t o graphic association named after a small river that fl ows into the sea at Senigallia. Cavalli brought to this associat i o n
the aesthetic principles and the spirit of La Bussola, wh i ch we re a kind of religion. One of the photogr a p h e rs who joined
Misa was Mario Giacomelli, who can be considered Cava l l i ’s most important disciple. Giacomelli interp reted the master’s
lesson intelligently, cre ating highly original photogr a p hy that re flected his own unmistakable pers o n a l i t y. Senigallia and its
A d r i atic, its lights and its at m o s p h e re s, became Cava l l i ’s main re f e rence throughout the second half o f his life.
In 1953, or there a b o u t s, he widened his tonal range, presenting along with his ‘high-key’ images others that we re totally
diff e rent. Th ey had a more intense graphic structure, wh i ch was ch a r a c t e r i zed by at m o s p h e res reminiscent of those created
by the Swiss-American photographer Robert Frank, and a completely diff e rent poetic and lyrical quality that re a ch e d
new heights. During this last period of his life he also began to take colour photographs and, although they we re re l at i ve l y
f e w, he still succeeded in ach i eving his customary pureness of ex p ression combined with a vibrant plastic and poetic fo rc e.
5 G.Turroni, op.cit., 1959, p. 10.
6 Nel suo già citato saggio Turroni sente in realtà Cavalli: «Legato a una scuola, a una nazione, persino a una regione, le Marche» molto lontano da Weston, che narra
una società e una cultura. Scrive in op.cit., 1959, p. 46: «Ecco il rapporto dell’uomo con le cose. Non è questo il tanto discusso specifico fotografico Non è questa la via
di Weston e di Cavalli Solo che nel primo il rapporto è immediato, mentre nel secondo appare riflesso. La Puglia di Cavalli, per esempio, è un emblema di Puglia,
emblema letterario e sapientemente figurativo, non nutrito dal sangue della società e della storia».
7 8 fotografi italiani d’oggi, Istituto d’Arti Grafiche, Bergamo, 1942, p. 25.
8 Il manifesto del Gruppo La Bussola, aprile 1947. Il manifesto è a firma di Giuseppe Cavalli, Mario Finazzi, Ferruccio Leiss, Federico Vender, Luigi Veronesi, ma in
realtà la stesura del manifesto è ad opera di Giuseppe Cavalli. La velina del manifesto si trova nell’archivio Cavalli di Roma ed è stata pubblicata, a cura di Daniele
Cavalli, in A.Margiotta, F.Pirani, D.Mormorio, D.Cavalli, Giuseppe Cavalli Fotografie 1936-1961, Gangemi Editore, Roma, 2006, p.103. Nello stesso volume è riportata
anche una nota autobiografica del 1957 in cui Giuseppe Cavalli scrive: «Nel 1947 ebbi l’idea di un gruppo che divulgasse seriamente e senza schemi preconcetti cultura
ed arte nella fotografia: nacque così “La Bussola” della quale scrissi il Manifesto».
9 A Senigallia presso la Collezione Civica sono custodite centosettanta fotografie di Cavalli con vari soggetti: dalle marine alle figure alle nature morte.
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