The air of a bewildered student, a numinous canvas, and the moment of peering out. My heart is an empty vessel resting on the brazier \u2014 the exposed calluses against the leather of the boot cut sharply, the lips dry, held firm by hollowed cheeks and a defiant gaze. Only what is happening now has meaning. One must hold back with patience, with creative will, with that force of anguish<\/em>1<\/a><\/sup> that belongs to the poet as much as his ineptitude. The silence is emphatic, opaque, the fa\u00e7ades swallow the light \u2014 the more I observe them, the more they disappear\u2026 guiding me to do the same. Though empty, the bag bends my back \u2014 a sacred, hunching pain \u2014 I remain vis-\u00e0-vis. \u201cWhat does it mean?\u201d, \u201cWhy that colour?\u201d \u2014 I hear the questions posed in order to understand, uncivil for a dialogue. The answer is already here, why interrupt it? I am here to continue a discourse. It overtakes me and I accept it. The only question I manage to set against it is inward: from what point should one look?<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my hand, two books cling to one another out of necessity, each keeping the other\u2019s place between the pages: \u201cSone\u010dka\u201d by Marina Tsvetaeva and the \u201cWritings\u201d of Mark Rothko. It is an unforeseen inevitability \u2014 the words feel they have the necessary space to flow. And no, I must not hastily cling to Newman\u2019s words2<\/a><\/sup>, the new painters<\/em>, the distinction between the plastic and the plasmic \u2014 it is oil paint that carries one elsewhere, and elsewhere is different for each of us. I must dare one step further, become Antonio Verri as he crosses Umberto Palam\u00e0\u2019s Space-Time Door3<\/a><\/sup>, move beyond the canvas severed at the edges, following the perimeter of the frame, because there was never any canvas at all. Before these altars converges the desire for the unknown. It allows me to trace a road, a path that does not open onto visible spaces \u2014 limited, too wakeful \u2014 but onto vision itself. To open a path is to open a void, repeated and unequal, toward the centre of all centres, the axis \u2014 and within the work remains the tension, the obsessive intention, of our attempts to grasp the primordial. We go searching for it in art, between narrow freedoms and prisons too vast, in movement \u2014 of which Romano Gasparotti4<\/a><\/sup> spoke \u2014 in dance, hunting for reminiscences. I sense Sonechka fleeing the theatre pursued by Stanislavski \u2014 the month of April, his conversations before Marina, that frenetic friendship<\/em>5<\/a><\/sup>. It is the very same red \u2014 shining, the cover of the book and the painting alike \u2014 a consumptive flush<\/em>6<\/a><\/sup>; the freezing nights, the hunger all around, and yet within herself Marina did not betray colour \u2014 joyful, like Sylvia Plath\u2019s temperament that allowed her to ennoble the sky with blue and give grass its green<\/em>7<\/a><\/sup>. The absolute power of feeling. The poet is response itself, a scorified posture stripped down to feel only what is essential, the single indispensable word that alone reveals \u2014 and to utter only the language itself. Not yet art, and yet already more than art.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n It is Mark Rothko who says, Some artists want to say everything. I think it is more profound to say little<\/em>8<\/a><\/sup>, and he lists the ingredients necessary to do so, to make painting. And why not adopt them instead as the necessary ingredients for experiencing it? First, the awareness of death<\/em> \u2014 what colour does it have? The pallor of a bruised corpse? Not at all: the colour of sweet Sone\u010dka! The vivid colour of the hero. Of one who has chosen to burn in order to warm others<\/em>9<\/a><\/sup> \u2014 and conscious eyes are heroic eyes. Second, sensuality<\/em> \u2014 hers, before the soldiers while performing Nasten\u2019ka in White Nights<\/em> \u2014 in her little dress, a sweetly smiling muse who says \u201cgrey\u201d instead of \u201cbanal.\u201d The girl one loves sleeplessly; she is the first to know it: I myself am a white night<\/em>. Third, tension<\/em> \u2014 the elastic force of life, the ingenious defusing of the lacerating machine we carry within us. The moment in which we are called to choose, those gestures, that way of carrying them out. They seem to say who we are \u2014 whether we like it or not \u2014 and who are you, Sone\u010dka, when you list the reasons why you granted a kiss you did not wish to give \u2014 But if I hadn\u2019t kissed him, I would never again have dared to play Juliet.<\/em> The final room \u2014 before the shop, the catalogue, the bookmark and the poster \u2014 the last glance I reserve for Untitled<\/em>, dated 1969. An acrylic child disturbs the stillness, her vocal cords delicate: \u201cThis is the sky!\u201d She is absorbed by the vast dimensions of the painting in an instant, along with her hair clips, ballet flats, and childhood name. Along with the words, larger than her mouth, as spontaneous as lifting peach slices from the pit. This is the sky \u2014 a blue dream beginning to exist a millimetre above the ground, a thin interval unrolling into a boundless mystery. But now it is wonder \u2014 for the parents, the tourists and the guides, the students and the teachers. What you have said belongs to everyone\u2019s gaze now, an alphabet painted within the heart10<\/a><\/sup>. Say what you feel, child, say what you see \u2014 do not question it. The point from which you look\u2026 I would make myself smaller and smaller until I could reach you \u2014 tiny, reduced to grains of rice. Outside this place no one sleeps, and I, too, shall have a new happy secret. A sheet of laid paper will bear witness for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Riccardo Pedicone<\/strong> was born in Pordenone and moved to Milan at the age of seventeen. He worked as an author in the fields of podcasting and radio before focusing entirely on his literary and educational projects. In 2021 he made his debut with his first book, \u201cL\u2019inesatto attimo in cui siamo morti\u201d. In 2024 he published \u201cNasco oggi, ora lo so\u201d and launched the \u201cDiagonale\u201d series with Do it human. In 2025 he published his third book with Rizzoli, \u201cE sembra quasi vero\u201d, and launched the literary podcast \u201cFelici Pochi\u201d on YouTube and Spotify. In 2022 he founded the cultural association NOCE, of which he is currently president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the cover:<\/em> Mark Rothko, Untitled<\/em>, 1969, Collezione Christopher Rothko. (Rothko a Firenze<\/em>, exhibition views, Museo di San Marco, Firenze, 2026. Photo Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" -\u201cChildren are not interested in the artistic product, but in the relationship, in what the work triggers, Chiara Guidi used to say\u201d.-\u201cOr as Rodari said, children know one thing more than grammar!\u201d(Conversation after an evening gathering) The air of a bewildered student, a numinous canvas, and the moment of peering out. My heart is an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"\u201c<\/em>Il poeta e il tempo\u201d, Marina Cvetaeva, ed. Adelphi.<\/em>\",\"id\":\"7e68692a-17f6-4de2-8508-ceaf29f2e9ec\"},{\"content\":\"Barnett Newman, testo di riferimento \u201cIl sublime, adesso\u201d, ed. Abscondita<\/em>\",\"id\":\"4f5390ff-8d18-4cb0-84ee-1fb6cefe0643\"},{\"content\":\"Dal catalogo \u201cVERRI Antonio Leonardo - Una stupenda generazione\u201d, fotografia scattata ad Antonio Verri mentre attraversa l\u2019opera dello scultore Umberto Palam\u00e0 tenendo tra le mani il \u201cquotidiano dei poeti\u201d.<\/em>\",\"id\":\"172d65d2-8562-44d0-9946-86d8706e32b1\"},{\"content\":\"\u201cSulla danza\u201d, ed. Cronopio<\/em>\",\"id\":\"8f2b15f3-60ff-45f5-b60e-93bc2fad9e4b\"},{\"content\":\"\u201cSone\u010dka\u201d, Marina Cvetaeva, ed. Adelphi.<\/em>\",\"id\":\"5413f83d-6fcc-438d-a54c-1aa2f017f129\"},{\"content\":\"\u201cIl flauto di vertebre\u201d -<\/em> \u201cPoesie d\u2019amore\u201d, Vladimir Majakovskij, ed. Einaudi<\/em>\",\"id\":\"395ed6fa-b8a4-49b2-9c04-7aea73f98547\"},{\"content\":\"\u201cIo\/se di umore lieto, \/do all'erba il suo verde, \/blasono il cielo d'azzurro e al sole \/dono l\u2019oro\u201d - \u201cSoliloquio della solipsista\u201d, Sylvia Plath<\/em>.\",\"id\":\"699a0f70-1210-48e4-a8b7-69a7b982f481\"},{\"content\":\"\u201cScritti\u201d, Mark Rothko, ed. Abscondita.<\/em>\",\"id\":\"05fe3082-41bf-4eab-82e7-59e167153b07\"},{\"content\":\"\u201cGli Imperdonabili\u201d, Cristina Campo, ed. Adelphi.<\/em>\",\"id\":\"a4b64ebe-f07d-4c2a-ad75-95b6271ce501\"},{\"content\":\"\u201cIl cuore \/che avevo a scuola \/dov\u2019era dipinto \/l\u2019alfabeto,(\u2026)\u201d, \u201cBallata interiore\u201d, Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca.<\/em>\",\"id\":\"9b8d0681-693b-4d88-ba87-41e51975decd\"}]"},"categories":[1],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-23265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-senza-categoria","tag-rothko-a-firenze"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.palazzostrozzi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Documento3-1-1024x614.jpg\")
Fourth, irony\u2026 (the Greeks had no need of it)<\/em> \u2014 but what of poets? Or Socrates? Dialogue originates in fictions and opposites! Irony is the only means through which to narrate the destiny of the world \u2014 or even merely one\u2019s own, in order to escape it \u2014 with a distant gaze, tinting it pink, like the coffin the young lady<\/em> desires. To imagine aloud \u2014 Mine should be pink. So please, be kind enough to give me a pink one.<\/em>
Fifth, wit, humour<\/em> \u2014 contained within a reddish trunk where Sone\u010dka keeps her bridal trousseau. Before every proposal, already possessing a white dress, orange blossoms<\/em> \u2014 this too is an answer before the question, and thanks to the Sixth \u2014 the ingredients that follow \u2014 with a few grams of the ephemeral and the accidental<\/em>, triumphing over ab-so-lute Mediocrity<\/em>. Despite everything, when necessary there must be a Seventh, ten percent hope<\/em>, a green armchair upon which to live, deep and impenetrable<\/em> \u2014 and the remaining ninety is surrender; but without that ten percent Sone\u010dka would have no place to return to, nowhere to await a friend who will listen to all her truths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.palazzostrozzi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Documento-1-1024x614.jpg\")
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