A fascinating dialogue between light and shadow
At a time when art merges with reality, Aurelio Amendola, born in Pistoia in 1938, is certainly a master in the art of photography, but perhaps it would be more appropriate to call him an alchemist of light. His career of rigour and substance began in the 1960s, always far from the frivolous salons of contemporary art, accompanied only by a Hasselblad that fixes light like no other and his critical eye that poetises it in its essential purity. Amendola plays with shadows and chiaroscuro, sketching not just images, but entire worlds with his camera. His gaze penetrates the surface of things, revealing the silent dance between light and matter, between the visible and the invisible. His photographs of the Italian Renaissance are not mere representations, but appear as revelations, discoveries, hidden universes that reveal the language of the soul and time in each shot.
In 1994, the work 'An Eye on Michelangelo' stood out as a work of rare beauty, winning the Oscar Goldoni prize. With this book, he not only photographs the Medici Chapels, but captures the very essence of Michelangelo's genius, in a silent dialogue that spans the centuries. With his Hasselblad, he does not just immortalise stone and marble, he also explores the human face of art, capturing the essence of figures from De Chirico to Lichtenstein, Schifano and Warhol. In these images, artists are not mere subjects, they are co-protagonists in a visual narrative that explores the borderline between reality and dream, between art and life. In his travels through the lens, he has woven relationships with art giants such as Marini and Burri, relationships that have touched the chords of friendship and mutual understanding beyond mere artistic exchange. His art, exhibited in world-famous galleries and honoured in the temples of culture the Uffizi Gallery and the Hermitage, speaks a universal language: that of the incessant search for beauty, for the meaning hidden behind every corner of light and shadow. If the artist Amendola has made every photograph a story and every image a journey, Aurelio is certainly the man who has made every shot an instant of life, a step towards the beauty that makes us human. ph.©Aurelio Amendola
