By Rodolfo Papa
ICON-THEOLOGIES by Rodolfo Papa
Santa Maria Annunziata (Madonna of the Double Capes)
Leonardo da Vinci’s Annunciation is the explicit model of reference from which atmosphere and colours have been taken. The colours, achieved by glazes in Leonardo’s painting, in Capucci become the colours of the earth, which grow radiant and transfigured in sunlight: yellow ochre, green earth, and natural earth acquire the brilliance of reflected rays of light—just as Mary, a resplendent creature, does in the light of God who sends her a heavenly messenger. Yet a thousand canvases, panels, and frescoes also echo in these forms, so elegant that one loses oneself in the carefully fashioned details, which seem to recall the veils, mantles, and tunics so often seen and contemplated on the altars of our beautiful churches. In Master Capucci’s thought, Mary is not only a source of artistic and spiritual inspiration, but a true font from which to draw in order to produce beauty. She who, over the centuries, has been described in the reflection of the Fathers of the Church with so many marvellous and solemn attributes to sing her beauty. Beauty of a creature preserved ab aeterno from original sin, who preserves that profound bond with the Grace of God in which she is wrapped, with which she is filled. Kecharitōmenē, that is, “Full of Grace”: this is the greeting of the Archangel Gabriel, who in the angelic dialogue brings her God’s salutation and conveys to her the divine plan that will save all humanity from darkness, from fear, and from the second death. Capucci seems to wish to narrate for us that splendour of the angelic announcement through the marvellous reflections on the folds of those dyed and precious silks that he has designed with care, with the calm and delicacy of the artist who chisels the details of his own paintings with the intent of making them meaningful. Mary converses with the angel, learns his message, meditates upon it, and then accepts it, giving herself wholly into the hands of the Creator, becoming Mother of the Saviour; for this reason, here in this garment, Capucci presents her to us in a warm light of which she becomes the Mirror, speculum sine macula.
The Archangel Gabriel
The Archangel Gabriel bears a name that literally means “God is Mighty”—in other words, “the one who manifests the power of God.” How does Roberto Capucci represent this power? How does he portray the mighty sign that is manifested in the Archangel? In what way does he speak of the Spiritual Being whom we recognise in Gabriel? Capucci chooses to use a sky-blue silk tunic that nonetheless retains a hint of turquoise, to give at once the sign of the heavens—that morning sky which, at sunrise, is tinged with Naples yellow and with subtle pale greens, all derived in tones of turquoise mixed with lead white, threading among delicate transparent yellows and light blues that echo the glints of just-appeared light—and the sign of water, which in its transparencies reflects and refracts the light. Power is revealed in a gentle wind, an impalpable breath, which in moving gives life and makes everything luminous. That power of God is rightly, for Capucci, narratable as Grace—the very Grace that gives its name to the entire collection, rendered in the plural since it manifests itself in many facets, precisely in the person of Mary and here in the angel. The transparency of heaven drawing near to Mary, the invisible reality made visible to the eyes of those who know how to see beyond and through; the Mighty God manifesting himself to the young Virgin in all his celestial splendour, bringing a message and uttering eternal words. Master Capucci, surveying so much timeless art—so many masterpieces of Christian art—transfigures their signs and materialises them in a unique sign that is at once sum, synthesis, and development of many reflections, the fruit of meditations, sweat, and labour of so many supreme artists who through the centuries have sung the beauties of heaven, angelic realities, the divine splendour that bursts into everyday life—even through the arts—and that, in a thousand theophanies, becomes our travelling companion on our journey toward the same goal, which—from heaven, through heaven, by means of heaven—leads us back to heaven.
