Navyo’s collection of b/w photos of staircases he took in Italy. “The curve of a spiral stair echoing the feminine, the angled corners of a boxed stairwell the masculine. It’s a play of form the architects clearly intended and can be seen throughout the country.”
Walking through the sumptuous palaces and villas of Italy, one can’t help but notice the stairs. Whether ascending or descending or from a vantage point, they catch the eye and ask it to move. The curve of a spiral stair echoing the feminine, the angled corners of a boxed stairwell the masculine. It’s a play of form the architects clearly intended and can be seen throughout the country.
It’s as if all of Italy is a mirror of man and woman. Not just in sculpture and painting where the mortal flesh has been defined and displayed for centuries, but in the buildings themselves. The curve of the portico, the shaft of the column, it’s all there to let us know there is no real separation between body and building, between spirit and matter, between God and man.
Being inside an Italian villa, Villa D’Este for example, is to remind us that our dwellings are an extension of ourselves. The construction, the form, the way we are encouraged to move through them. Each has a flow of human origin.
I notice this especially in the staircase because of it’s spatial dimension – we get to move up and down, rather than just on the horizontal plane from room to room. There’s height and depth, even vertigo from looking down a stairwell. Looking up, the light from above suggesting a divine source. It’s as if we are one with our surroundings in the physical, tangible sense where masculine, feminine and creator unite in architectural beauty.
I hope to have captured this connection in my images.
Navyo is a regular contributor to this magazine
Navyo Ericsen, The Art of Mobile Photography: 500px.com
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