Everyone Italian in America
NEAPOLITAN PRESEPIO FOR 21ST CENTURY AMERICA ITS CIRCULAR LOGIC
How can something so familiar be so well hidden.
I give you the Italian or if you prefer Neapolitan Presepio. Woefully understated when referred to simply as the Nativity. The Presepio represents Italian style and imagination going back centuries as alive today as ever or should be.
Yet the Presepio also serves as one more example of Italian sophistication and intelligence NOT to get its due in America. There can and should be no better way of symbolizing both the meaning and the appeal of Christmas than the Presepio does.
You do not even need to be Christian to revel in the Presepio. It is pure theatre on an epic scale viewed in the detail of everyday Neapolitan life. Or indeed whatever thematic structure a Presepio builder wishes to convey.
The Presepio takes the central and simple image of Christ in the manger protected by Mary and Joseph and radiates out from this Center in any way the imagination can devise and craftsmanship can accomplish. The Presepio is branded Neapolitan because the idea was born there, developed there and has become synonymous there over centuries. And of course all the great Presepios are crafted in Naples.
A fabulous example of the art can be found right now at Casa Bevedere high atop Staten Island in New Yortk City. It is clearly a Neopolitan Presepio in every way. But it might be very very different and it would still merit being referred to as a Presepio.
Therein lies the potential and the future of the Presepio and its means of becoming far more intertwined with the image of Christmas right here in the United States.
Not to be too crass at Christmastime but all the Presepio needs is to be sold better to an American audience. Here again we have the inescapable problem of Italian American failure which rears its troubled head even in the most joyous places.
Ask most Americans and even too many Italian Americans about the Presepio and all you will get is a blank stare rather than a knowledgeable let alone an enthusiastic description about the Presepio and its place in the Italian celebration of Christmas.
The concept of the Presepio like most brilliant ideas is so very simple. Take the scene that defines Christmas, Mary and Joseph with the Baby Jesus in a manger and expand the idea to its theatrical call it operatic fullness.
WHY should a Nativity scene be lets call it a boring scene of a non-descript barn with a few disinterested animals lounging around with Jesus, Mary and Joseph plunked in the center of this decidedly unattractive mess.
The answer of course is that it need not be.
And it was Neapolitans who realized the obvious but even more did something about it. They began imagining and designing and crafting a range of figures that represent REAL life in Naples or the town of your choice. Even dispending with the old barn to be replaced with background of a crumbling temple representing the past that was being replaced with the Birth of Christ to bring New Life to us all.
And bringing such detail and realism to these very familiar character types from normal Neapolitan life that what came to be called the Presepio bursts with life, is life like and with the entire “universe” viewed in a Presepio literally coming to life along with Jesus.
As Anita Sanseverino expert engaging Presepio lecturer and photographer describes it so well the Presepio “lame or healthy, young or old we are all alike in Christ and a person’s worth comes not from their noble birth but by being human beings who were all created by God. This is what the Neapolitan Presepi shows and this is the message that is apparent in the Christmas story and no other creative endeavor show this more humanisticly and better than the Neapolitans and their Presepio.”
Could it be said any better than Anita Sanseverino does. No absolutely not. Indeed it is worth repeating her poetic description a second time …
..... “lame or healthy, young or old we are all alike in Christ and a person’s worth comes not from their noble birth but by being human beings who were all created by God. This is what the Neapolitan Presepi shows and this is the message that is apparent in the Christmas story and no other creative endeavor show this more humanisticly and better than the Neapolitans and their Presepio.”
And that being said where does that leave us in the here and now. Here in America in the 21st century in need of elevating our Italian culture to new heights rather than continuing to watch it fade away ?
It leaves us with a great opportunity if we will seize it. To embrace the art of the Presepio as it never before has been in the United States. To invigorate it as a major visual and artistic element in Christmases of the future beginning with Christmas 2011 and the 150th anniversary of Italian unification. The creation of modern Italy.
And to do even more in so doing.
The fact is the art of the Presepio is DYING In its very home Naples. Why because of a decreasing interest in the art form that is having younger Neapolitans refusing to take up the craft because they see no future in it.
Young men and women who “imagine” a brighter future working in some disappearing and dismal factory instead. While what is left of the “industry” is being preserved by mostly Chinese and other Asians who have developed the skills required to make and dress figures in the Presepio tradition.
The point is energizing interest in the Presepio here in America will have wondrous results back in Italy as well especially the Naples area.
But what exactly are we to do ?
For starters major Italian American institutions and organizations need to commission Presepi that they will glorious display each Christmas Season themselves in their own facilities or lend to churches, museums, foundations, etc. that will want to display these valuable uplifting works of art. Creating an American Presepio network.
Right now in New York City the world renowned Metropolitan Museum’s very large and elaborate Presepio is one of the major attractions in this world capital each Christmas Season. But rather than this one notable Presepio and another on display at Casa Brelvedere on Staten Island this Christmas …
We need many many more high quality very appealing Presepi on display here, there and everywhere. Across America We equally need to be imaginative in design and promotion of the art of the Presepio.
Will the most appealing 21st century American Presepi be a mirror image of the traditional Neapolitan Presepio. NO not if we wish to be ambitious in our expectations and goals.
Here is one riveting example of change of the evolution of the Presepio in the 21st century and giving it a modern character while preserving the traditional Presepio the scene of Neapolitan life from long ago.
Allow me to propose the CIRCULAR Presepio with Jesus, Mary and Joseph retaining their central role but inhabiting both the world of the Presepio’s past and its future. Half of this circular landscape populated with high quality but traditional figures of old time Italian village life ….
But on the “other side” of the Presepio figures reflecting contemporary American life. It will be “shocking” in a most positive way to see Jesus, Mary and Joseph looking down upon both a scene of traditional life at least vaguely reflecting their own milieu and the Old World but just as much on the other side of the Circular Presepio facing the present and the future and this New World we actually live in today and will tomorrow.
Can you imagine.
Those viewing the 21st century Presepio circling it to grasp its fullness rather than standing statically facing the Presepio as one would and does every Presepio ever created from the Middle Ages until today.
The 21st century Presepio uniting the past and the future in the present and with Jesus, Mary and Joseph “timelessly” at its center this “universe” which is complete a living universe in which God exists for all time for all of us from all times and places. As symbolizing so well in the unique imagery of the Circular Presepio. The complete cycle of Time the circle represents
Having taken the concept this far it will be more than logical to capture its power in one or more documentary films and lots of YouTube videos that will illustrate the entire story of the Presepio with the highest possible production values and films that take viewers intimately through the entire process of crafting a new Presepio from initial design idea, then every production step along the way until the new Presepio is unveiled and placed on display at Christmas in America.
These are the steps Italian Americans can and should take not only to preserve the tradition of the Presepio - no far far more elevate it to new heights in the 21st century and in such a away it will resonate resoundingly all the way back to Naples resulting in renewed interest in the artistry of the Presepio and attracting a new generation of talented young men and women to take up the trade and make successful careers for themselves in the crafting of new Presepi.
Is this too much to ask of the Italian American community.
It should not be ! But as usual it may be ?
If you haven’t yet plese view highklights froim Anita Sanseverino’s Presepio lecture at Casa Belvedere presented December 1, 2010 …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o15fd0uTHT4
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Tags: belvedere, casa, italian, neapolitan, presepio
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