Monograph - Out of the Myth - 
OUTSIDE THE MYTH
compete with the mask of Pulcinella matter courage. Why is the "literature" on the subject is immense literary abuse extreme exploitation drama that from having been consumed successfully accumulated over the centuries. Yet the figurative force of Aniello Scotto you leap reconciled with the mask and surprise with their originality of the artist who breaks the rules and the rhetoric of the "way", be it classical or avant-garde since, unfortunately, there is also a mannerism garde. Figuration which, not coincidentally, through intact drawings, engravings, and that pictorial expression, is accompanied by an impressive clarity of color and soft light, and recreate the picture that emerges from the chaos of feeling, of ' erlebnis that is a matter art that can not stand alone because it would matter without form, and therefore nothing. There is, was leaked, an explosive force in Aniello Scotto who is always dominated. What is distinctive, in our opinion, the hallmark of art. Experienced that feeling, to quote Leopardi, that feeling becomes covered, the catharsis in the aesthetic sense and moral status of the modern poetics of Aristotle and that, in certain aspects of modern aesthetics can be found in Vico Cross idea background that art is a time of learning, albeit peculiar and sui generis. Pulcinella, thus bringing the spotlight back on hunched shoulders the weight of old controversies and animated discussions, interpretations and glaring oversights sophisticated philological and historical studies. But, fortunately, the traces of this ancient history can be glimpsed only in the work that has already Aniello Scotto, though still young, made a long, remarkable journey, arduous as it is probably inevitable if you have, as Scott has, the sense tragic existence, of living, which is always based on the dialectic of the passions, the polarities of joy and pain as constituent acts of mankind and, as the practice of thinking that created it and on it reflects changing it. Who is Punch? I do not know how useful it is, in our case, invoking historiographical disputes or, better, philological and have been bench and always found in the famous essay by Benedetto Croce a classic exemplar. Not too important, I think, to side with the young Cross argues that the membership of the Punch tradition of the Commedia dell'Arte, or that the German Albrecht Dieterich in 1897, in a voluminous book, he believed it possible to trace the birth of Neapolitan mask Roman antiquities easier, perhaps, the long, too long, the course of history. Dispute useful for the scholar and critic, but probably not necessary to understand the meaning of the "unmasking" Aniello Scotto that makes our traditional classical form. First appearance, in fact, fundamental inspiration of strong imagination, "so to speak, the artist who rips the mask to the character, as well, and this is easily identifiable nell'indiscutibile transfiguration and that is the language of the body, to quote Ugo Piscopo, who is one of the specificities of Pulcinella as other forms of popular theater but in that of Naples, enhance the living flesh. But we turn our attention to other disputes, in anthropological, ethical-political, symbolic, about the value to give the Punch became an emblem of a city, a nation or even of a condition human. Perhaps it is this varied phenomena that can draw on to take the mask without Aniello Scotto Pulcinella, Punch, while remaining himself seems to embody in each work a different person, an individual with its unique identity and personality: a necessary condition to I think, because art is truly manifest, by saying that it is his own representation of itself, a symbol and metaphor of itself. Otherwise it would be a mere exercise in intellectual, a play of more or less witty or trivial (a necessary condition for the large short-term success), while the sign Scotto, figuration, they are always the same values, force interior, as has been said, that discipline in the picture only outward appearances, no false or cunning use of mirrors. Pulcinella, then, absolutely original than that of many discussions, literary or otherwise, which we called earlier. So not only do the dispute nor the purely philological theory, enough to explain the expressiveness by Aniello Scotto it's all poetry. It is not at issue here, in fact, the "pulcinellanità," the idea of \u200b\u200bsubstance or form that characterizes himself and at the same time, an essence of people. A sort of Platonic idea of \u200b\u200bthe Neapolitan, that is negative or positive. Recently, De Maio, St. Elias and others are back on presenting interpretations of absolute importance, but in common sense in the collective lives Pulcinella a comic or melancholy, or a Punch Neapolitan is the essence of eternal and in this, we should say , basic contrast. Still relive the conflicting feelings of elation or denigration of "Pulcinella", as, indeed, has happened and is happening for Toto, which is perhaps, in many ways, the true heir to the ancient form. The Pulcinella philosopher, witty and intelligent, with his jokes, his jokes, even his antics, jokes power, punish the vices public and private embodies a kind of revolutionary hero of the human comedy. Or a Punch seems to take upon himself all the characteristics of oleography Naples, a charming, cheerful, carefree, happy but at the right time, compassionate and generous: once again, then, a hero, a folk hero and plebeian, around which to build a sort of defense of the Neapolitan tradition, the southern Mediterranean. On the other side, the absolute denigration of the character, symbol of all the ills of our land, all the defects of our people. The Pulcinella lazy, clever but not clever, annoyingly, always "sfottitore" plebeian tastes and attitudes, in which even the tragic misery of hunger turns into a ill attachment to meat and food, almost a brutality not retained or even enhanced. In short, the precipitate of all the worst clichés of the Neapolitans to hide behind to justify or even enhance its degeneration the inevitable decline. Perhaps, like Toto, we must distinguish between Punch and "Pulcinella", including Toto and "totoismo. E 'indisputable fact that the constant glorification of plebeismo Naples, disguised, is to be said, from anthropological research or revaluation political and social damage represents a dramatic redemption of a mob, which would perhaps Marx defined the proletariat in rags , only if it could redeem himself to break off sharply with its past, throwing up as pulp clichés that undermine the true and profound civilization. That's why, to mention a criticism of content that in our case only serves to better motivate the only true criticism, which is the aesthetic, the Pulcinella Aniello Scotto has its indisputable validity and vitality because, in our view, this cuts the past while keeping present and bending it to a worldview that universalized, indeed, whether the existential symbol of Pulcinella. E 'Pulcinella, in fact, stripped, as repeatedly stated, unmasked, which lies between dream and reality, or rather in a world that is transformed in the dream. The same author, moreover, shows us this process of interpretation. What is behind the black mask, how, on the other hand, the masks that we all have to immerse ourselves in the face in order to live? It seems that Scott, with a strong trait of his plan, with the power of personal representation, will give a face to Pulcinella. Please do not just take off the mask, but building one that takes away, as we said, the clichés, the stereotypes of the iconographic tradition of old and new. And another fact emerges Pulcinella, wakes up in a dreamlike tones and colors that belonged to the time of the great Caravaggio. Scott himself tells us that this is an idealized Punch Colombina, which foreshadows a kind of hero as a romantic knight forced to live in the human tragedy that he abhors, and perhaps fear. In fact it appears in some representations Caravaggio in movements that might seem ironic and, instead, are tragic. Yet at times it seemed to catch even a Satyr Pulcinella, immersed in a profound and visceral sexuality which, however, stylized immediately, leaving behind the flesh of the plebeian order that we felt frankly and without appeal. It seems to capture a kind of Dionysian, which, however, is not opposed necessarily all'apollineo; state that does not remain of pure materiality. In saying this, it would seem that we intend to demean the force almost spontaneous Scotto. While it is true is the opposite, because the artist enters the depths of the same flesh, of sexuality, eros, without being vulgar superficiality of the vulgate Pulcinella. From here, a stripping that does not necessarily mean, as often happens in today, falling into frigidity. Basically, in the tumult of passions Scotto requires a naive, highly, nobly naive, which reassesses the Pulcinella dreamer, the dreamer man who thinks he can dominate and overcome the bitterness and brutality of life real. But the dream of Pulcinella is revealed to be, Scotto, not only the idealized dream, but the dream itself, that of the unconscious, since the real Pulcinella, without a mask, wakes up and discovers old, shabby, all things considered defeated. Thus emerges for the whole tragedy of the character as the human condition and the apparent naive idealism is shattered sadly, at some point dramatically, in front at the appearance of truth. But, as often happens in the real artists whose sensitivity is always premium on common sense, that discovery stunned the tragedy, the necessary acceptance of a harsh and bitter reality, does not yield to despair. It will reopen a gate to the hope that is characteristic of artistic transfiguration. Ernesto Paolozzi
Women between myth and history, literature and art, from antiquity to Beatrice Cenci 
