‘Our land has been abused by the iron plough and overpowered by man who seeks his living from it, and who, without realising it, furrows his own wrinkles and hopes in it.’
(Mario Giacomelli, handwritten notes 1990s, Courtesy of the Mario Giacomelli Archives).
These landscapes were photographed from a hilltop. It is here that Giacomelli began to search for signs and markings that were no longer surface level, but deeply inscribed in the land. Back in his darkroom, under the enlarger, he used contrast and over-exposure to create rich black areas which decontextualise and abstract the landscape, giving it a cosmic magnitude. The photographs of the square farmhouse on the hilltop at Vallone (a province of Senigallia), taken throughout the seasons and years and across different stages of cultivation, also belong to this series. Between 1955 and 1968 Giacomelli mainly photographed the hills at Arcevia (a hamlet between Senigallia and Sassoferrato) and Sant’Angelo (a province of Senigallia). Between 1960 and 1980 he explored the hills at Montelago (a province of Sassoferrato) and Vallone.
Giacomelli’s exploration of the central-northern zone of Le Marche always retraced the same geographical markers, spanning around fifty kilometres square. Within this defined area, he followed two routes: one heads inland from the Adriatic coast (from Senigallia to Arcevia, exploring all the various off-shoots), and the other follows the coast from Falconara to Torrette di Fano. His photography drew him to specific places. He admitted that going to photograph them was a “pretext” for entering into the landscape, and, through this existential geographical journey, for accessing his own depths.
(Mario Giacomelli. Under the skin of reality, ed. Katiuscia Biondi, Schilt Publishing, 2015)
