There were times when Van Gogh and Monet would have been without canvas and paints had it not been for the generosity of Julien 'Pere' Tanguy, the Montmarte art store proprietor turned benefactor, who often accepted their paintings in exchange for supplies. Much to the dismay of Madame Tanguy, this fatherly man was also known to advance supplies to young artists who had no means of repayment. With so many of his customers paying in art, he became known as an eccentric collector and art dealer, displaying paintings in his shop windows. Artists began meeting at the shop, exchanging ideas and eventually creating new styles and the Impressionist techniques that enrich society today.
The modern day equivalent of Tanguy's art shop for the Italian art scene is Zecchi Colori Art Supply store, located in the center of Florence, the birthplace of the15th century Italian Renaissance. Sitting across the cobblestone street with a front-door view of the Duomo, Zecchi's supplies artists world wide with hard to find paints and traditional materials. With an ancient fresco built into its fasade, the shop also serves as an iconic leader in restoration techniques. Dedicated to the application techniques derived from masters who used the materials centuries ago, Zecchi's fine materials bring life to restoration efforts all over Florence. And similar to the generous traditions of Montmarte's Tanguy, Zecchi's occasionally becomes patron subsidizer, helping to create opportunities for new businesses and spread knowledge of old techniques far outside of mother Italy.
'Massimo Zecchi paid shipping charges by the ton to have my fresco materials sent overseas,' says iLia Annosov, founder of the Nationwide Fresco Painting Workshop Program, presently FrescoSchool, located in Los Angeles California. 'The Fresco School is greatly possible due to the support of Massimo Zecchi.' iLia continues, 'The United States does not have fresco materials available domestically. I wanted the best tools and with Zecchi's help, I could afford to import the needed materials into the states. I could concentrate, thanks to Zecchi's, on teaching and popularizing true fresco!' Zecchi sent the orders first and allowed the fledgling Fresco School to pay later. Since those first gratis shipments in 1997, the Fresco School has grown to become the only year-round school of its kind and has taught hundreds of students from around the world the ancient technique of fresco art.
Knowledge of ancient cultures preserved through frescos from the streets of Florence to Mayan temples to the caves of Neolithic man to houses in Pompeii erase distance and boundaries between cultures. In contrast, the modern world is a complex bank of new information and technology, often forcing short cuts in visual arts education. iLia, one of a handful of buon (true) fresco masters in the world says, 'Fresco is easy. Yes, it is an ancient technique, but it's not hard to learn.' Often referred to as a lost or dying art, fresco is the most widely practiced art technique of all the ages since the beginning of human history, yet this endangered art form is not generally taught in mainstream universities or art schools in the United States.
The knowledge gained in the experience of using this technique is invaluable to anyone who uses color. In fresco painting, complex chemical reactions occur which literally meld the layers of picture into stone, a process not teachable by acrylic mediums or books. Fresco is an exciting tool to help the watchful artist understand how volume, tone and layers of color can blend together to visually form three dimensions. 'With fresco, the color combinations either work or they don't, iLia chuckles. When students approach fresco, there are no pre-conceived notions about color that would not be put to test and only the true ones will be exposed becoming a foundation in understanding color and value.' Students and professionals alike learn to build and integrate color in new ways that allow them to render their murals faster and more effectively.
Confused about color? Have a question about the intricate differences in cadmium red pigment versus scarlet pigment? Serving the art community since 1956 with world class service and perfect English, the staff at Zecch's likes to answer questions, saving the artist any future headaches by advising correctly the first time on any topic ranging from antique methodology, conservation, historical applications, to modern materials. Go talk to Massimo, and make sure to ask him for some of the 'good stuff.' Behind the cash register on the top shelf of the store sits a row of large glass jars. . The exact origins of these lavish clays and powders housed inside them are often kept secret. The raw chunks of locally unearthed colors are sold by the kilo. This same palette of colors appears throughout Florentine culture, a color key of powdered earth pigments used to decorate the city from house paints to signboards and in works of art from museums to Cathedrals.
Literally, Zecchi Colori is the art store that artists dream about. It's the artists home away from home, like Tanguy's shop, where painters swap techniques, ideas, paintings, and passions to fuel future masterpieces. The shop serves as a romantic backdrop for the ever-changing transmuting tide of art knowledge, conservation and avant-garde. The store stands as proof that a melding of ideas can happen when the right connections are available. In today's oft-trendy marketplace, avant-garde equals conservation and a renewed interest in the lessons of the ageless, trend less tradition of fresco.
The good-natured purveyors of art stores who take financial risks when they decide to begin a potentially symbiotic relationship with an artist they believe in never know if or how their philanthropic deeds will be rewarded. In only one year of mingling in Tanguy's shop, Van Gogh practiced techniques that progressed him into life as a fulfilled painter. When comparing his dull heavy-handed style of painting in A Pair of Shoes with the living quality of his Portrait of Pere Tanguy, Vincent himself said that his images had lacked life until then.
Like Tanguy who supplied paints for the French impressionists, Zecchi Colori is much more than an art store. A hub in the art world, Zecchi's supports the birth of new ideas for the wealth of the public future. iLia Annosov built The Fresco School around the core belief that the proliferation of fresco art is his life's mission. By 2003, The Fresco School traveling workshop exploded into an international success. Supplies were needed in such large amounts that Coppola Brothers Company, the renowned Venetian plaster contracting firm from Arizona and Hawaii, began to oversee the shipping and ordering of fresco materials from Zecchi and took over the original TrueFresco.com's Fresco Shop supplying iLia's students with needed fresco-specific materials and lime putties.
A true art center, Zecchi's supports artists like Mr. Anossov who create new treasures and preserve old traditions.
by Anna Metcalf
