Bocca della verità

“While I was studying with Leoncillo in Rome, I stopped on my scooter one day beside the river where some people were pruning the trees. Without thinking, I asked if I could have a branch. I took it back to my studio on Via Gregoriana and thus started making these things of wood.” (FICACCI, 2002, p. 14)
Mario Ceroli’s love at first sight for this material was sudden but lasting. The use of untreated wood for crates, shaped into rigorously unpainted silhouettes, became the hallmark of all his work. The most frequent subjects are multiplied human figures but also reinterpretations of artworks of the past. Rome offers Ceroli a vast repertoire to draw upon, as in the case of this Mouth of Truth, where the charred wood subtly recalls the characteristic dark veins in the original mask of pavonazzetto marble. (Transl. by Paul Metcalfe per Scriptum, Roma) BIBL: Mario Ceroli. Carte, a cura di L.Ficacci, Milano, 2002.