The birth of contemporary goldsmithing in Italy

“The quality of a project depends on the degree, even minimal, of cultural change it triggers”.

Even today there are two types of goldsmith production in Italy: a commercial one, created using molds by large manufacturing houses or by the goldsmith in a small workshop, appreciated by a traditionalist and not very curious clientele, and a contemporary, research-based one, created both by the artist of clear fame (meaning not only painters and sculptors, but also architects and designers) who tries his hand in a field, that of goldsmithing, unknown to him, both by gold artists.

The market and its laws should deal with the first, artistic criticism should deal with the second. One can well understand an attitude of cautious reserve towards an art, that of ornamentation, which has always been exposed to the changing currents of fashion and taste and which struggles to renew itself from a design point of view.

Having said this, we cannot justify the lack of attention paid by contemporary critics to jewellery, even more so if we consider that Italy is among the leading industrialized countries in the world when it comes to the production and processing of gold; I am referring to the three largest districts, Arezzo, Vicenza and Valenza Po, and other goldsmith centers such as Milan, Florence, Genoa, Naples, Turin and Fano.

As already mentioned previously, even for Italy, the post-war period marked the beginning of independent research in the goldsmith sector. Between 1945 and the beginning of the 1960s, Italy experienced an extraordinary season of reconstruction and renewal. Production and wages grew exponentially. Information and education helped spread “mass” needs and desires. The economic boom favored the birth of a dynamic, proactive middle class, attentive to new things and, above all, eager to buy. Women took on a new centrality in the family and work sphere, decreeing their own emancipation. The youth movements of political protest, which would soon animate, even violently, the city squares, began to desire a type of clothing and ornamentation that was not standardized and imposed by social conventions.

The new pendants, brooches and bracelets made explicit an ideological choice and were made of unusual and poor materials such as rope, leather, glass paste, silver or plastic. The clear cry of protest of the young generations against the values ​​of the new capitalist and technological society brings to mind the intentions of moving back to a "simplified", original, more natural state, of a group of artists who, in those same years, elected the “poor” material in his own expressive language (Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone…).

Industrial objects were produced for the home and for the person, in particular jewelery which could now be within everyone's reach and, on the other hand, the wealthier classes, who loved to show off wealth and well-being, still preferred the creations of the great maisons such as jewels designed by Bulgari.