Art has always interpreted and encapsulated the spirit of its era.
Although inspired by events dating back to 4000 years ago, Beppe Schiavetta’s paintings are steeped in the reality of ‘our’ times, and embody shared sentiment.
Climate change, natural disasters, the fight for resources and environmental imbalances are today, just like 4000 years ago, dominant on this panorama. The same panorama that our work as researchers calls us to study, analysing the complex and multi-faceted connections existing today as in the past between climate change, wars and migrations, and many other occurrences.
Artistic representation, in this case, goes as far as to strike a chord with scientific processes, and does so with the great virtue of conveying the priority of these themes through the emotional reactions that only art is able to prompt. It likewise provides us with a key to comprehend ‒ on a different plane from that of rationality ‒ the dramatic nature of priority issues on public and media agendas globally.
I thank the artist Beppe Schiavetta for lending his works to drawing attention to our challenges, which, today like 4000 years ago, require commitment from art too in being tackled.
Luca Ferraris President of CIMA Research Foundation
