Trebeschi - Nerone

Alberto Trebeschi
An Engineer of colours
I have always known Alberto Trebeschi.
We were born in the same village, Villarotta in the Province of Reggio Emilia.
In this village there were more taverns than people. Fog and misery never left us but people cared for each other and sung even on an empty stomach. Today no-one sings anymore and who was there, today is no longer.
Alberto was always the brightest of the class with a vivid intelligence. But even then he was a profound artist – in fact, you are born an artist rather than becoming one, even if you decide to become an engineer. A journey and one is taken away from one’s own roots without however, forgetting them: Alberto was smarter than me escaping from this hollow so as to swim better, I am still here immersed in the fog and sorrow.
I have looked at his paintings well. The colours are soft and full of apparent gentleness whereas the marks and shadows are troubling, but I am able to see inside them. Alberto is a restless soul and science has not fulfilled him even if he has had success; this for him is not sufficient, he loves poetry and at all costs wants to be a poet. The poetry of colour absorbs a lot of time. You have to make her your wife and lover immerging in her up to one’s neck almost drowning so as to feel the step of the poet when he walks on water and in the blue sky touching with his hands the breath of God: and this is what I felt with the Via Crucis of Alberto.
On occasions studying blocks the spontaneity of exiting free from all thoughts, thinking is bad for the painter, the mind darts here and there seeking a grip and creates only confusion, impeding you to express what you truly are. This is a lesson that Alberto has learnt well, in his pictures the liberty of his strokes is witness to the joy and originality of his creation.
Looking at the Via Crucis I halted at the second station – the Cross – and I felt the unsupportable weight of existence which I have never sought but which life has imposed on me.
Meeting Maria I discovered a man exhausted and confused between strips of flesh and bone speared, ready to be put on the spit over a scorching fire which burns life so as to create another life further ahead. Veronica, albeit in a tragic situation, for me is full of and overflows with sexuality which is the most beautiful poetry which God has created; enter and exit under a rainfall of love.
In the third downfall one can make out the image of a woman with her eyes closed in a deep slumber whilst someone observes her without being noticed to love her all the more. Sleep is the death which wanders through existence’s darkness.
Death on the Cross is the world of a woman much loved who cannot love, death cannot ever love life: this painting has an extraordinary energy of possession which has only the true lover.
The sepulchre is the synthesis of violence, it’s Munch’s Scream, it’s a self portrait which does not sufficiently hide itself since it wants to be noticed.
It’s four in the morning and my thoughts are intact and clear, it gives me an immense pleasure to speak of your paintings, dear Alberto, and I also hear the ring of the bells of Villarotta, hanging between two beams tired from supporting them.
Our youth has gone, devoured by time, but something still lives on in us. I feel that one day you will no longer be an engineer, you will no longer have to undertake the calculations requested of you by your scientific world, but you will live in the world of poets, of colour and every day there will be a new rainbow which will illuminate your thoughts and tint them with red, with blue, with green, with pink and you will feel happy to be born.
With a warm embrace
Nerone
Sergio Terzi