As I mentioned before, there was another piece of Breccia magic at this year's LCCAF… and unlike the first one, this was not a pre-commission waiting for me somewhere in the future. This one came into being right there, before my eyes.
To sit there and watch Maestro Enrique Breccia work is a rare kind of privilege. The story begins with a faint few lines, and then somehow, through his hands, colour and atmosphere and emotion gather themselves into form. The mastery is almost mystical, It feels like witnessing something pass through a veil…. something half-hidden, half-whispered, suddenly allowed into the visible spectrum by the right hands.
One of the things I have always loved most in the Mastro's work, is his way with colour. There is such sensitivity in it, such expressiveness. His colours do not simply describe a scene, they create its emotional weather. And here again, that alchemy is everywhere, from the pale, sun-struck softness of the stone, to those delicate aqueous blues, to the flashes of red and deep marine tones in Corto’s figure.
And Corto himself… there is something so wistful about him here. Seated in that crystalline stillness, he seems at once entirely present and a million miles away. His body is resting, but his mind is somewhere over a distant horizon. What is he thinking, I wonder. A memory? A departure? Some private reckoning known only to him?
I am profoundly grateful not only for the work itself, but for the chance to have watched it come to life. There is a particular kind of enchantment in seeing an artist of this calibre in his element… brush moving, decisions unfolding in real time, image and mood arriving together. Moments like that remind me just how much of the beauty is not only in the final piece, but in the act of creation.
And on a related note: while I still have rather complicated feelings about the Maestro leaving Europe, I am incredibly happy and excited to see the birth of El Sueñero Ediciones, the new Breccia family publishing house. I'm very much looking forward to seeing what they will bring into the world. [There appears to be a book in the works already… see here].
P.S. There's a video of the Maestro working on this piece, see here.
P.P.S. Yes I'm aware that today's Corto's birthday! That was kind of the point. =D Happy birthday Corto!
