piovigginando sale

....

urla e biancheggia il Mar

The above lines are from Carducci's poem of San Martino

 for the translation , I chose the  more pictorial Chinese characters for Carducci

which I believe he would have liked them

Pioviggiando sale , for instance, I chose 雨灑煙昇

The first character 雨 indicates visually the sky on top ( in this case above the mountains) which originates the falling of droplets of water

and together with the second character 灑 which consists of water ( the splashes one can see on the left hand side), and the beauty of how the water would be splashed on the right hand side

so piovigginando is rendered visually by two Chinese characters, one which is visually a movement of rain that comes down from above, kind of slowly splashing around in a light and beautiful way

'sale' in Italian means Raise

for this image of raising , Carducci wishes to describe the previous image of the first part where the fog is present

so the raising idea is related to the fog that rises slowly 

for this image, I have chosen to use the chinese characters 煙昇-

煙 is composed of an Image which is fire ( on the left hand side) together with the possibility of moving towards another direction rooted from the ground( right hand side)

the character means smoke- which has in essence the same characteristic as the fog where the atmosphere is a little bit hazy and filled with layers of various realities image wise

the second character is 昇， simply the moving force which arises from the ground

the force which rises up is the force of the fog, I believe it is light, slow and hazy

the first four paintings , therefore, are four different characters 雨灑煙昇, painted in a way that are inspired by the 'silent and hidden' visual images suggested by the poem of Carducci

therefore, these characters are not design elements, but atmospheric portrayal of the perhaps visual images latent in the poet's mind when he wrote the poem 

I dedicated them to Carducci as I was impressed by his way of putting the images together, how he could juxtapose the image of falling and the image of rising at the same time in a poetic way as if it is in perpetual motion

the images he uses are very pictorial and to me , very Chinese

so I could not help but paint them as Chinese calligraphy, on two layers of silk, or linen/silk/cotton, with various combinations

the fifth painting is the atmospheric portrayal of a strong image: urla e biancheggia il mar

- how the screaming waves are turning and roaring while the sea turns white

thank you Carducci for your inspiration 

Bernadette in Mui Wo, Hong Kong

13/11/2019

p.s ( typo error on my video- Per Carducci da Bernadette Kam Fu Lee instead of Bernadettele Kam Fu Lee) my apologies