Il relationship between food and art dates back in the mists of time. From Roman mosaics to medieval tables, to Renaissance banquets to futurism which at the beginning of the 900th century codified it into a veritable Manifesto of Futurist cuisine, signed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the poet Fillia, to the most modern expressions of contemporary art. Here it is worth quoting the great Lévi-Strauss who wrote in this regard: "No less than any aesthetic experience or work of art, a meal can fall within the coordinates of a classic, or baroque, or simple-rural, or sophisticated- decadent, and so on”.
The ennoblement of sweet art can be said to have its official manifesto in the painting "Page with feathered hat with plate of sweets” of the Master of sweets active in Rome at the end of the 600s which shows a young boy, servant of a noble court, showing off the sweet delicacies composed of candied fruit, icing and biscuits prepared for his lord, not to mention Tintoretto who was the first to insert a real cake at the center of the representations of the last supper. To then arrive at Pop Art ea Andy Warhol, who has created a series of lithographs featuring some more or less invented desserts, with imaginative recipes to reproduce them.
If the direction described so far is that of art towards sweets Walter Musco chef of the Bompiani pastry shop in Rome has seen fit to reverse the path to celebrate ten years of activity and successes by paying homage to the master of molds, hunchbacks, patched canvas bags, burnt plastics, now present in museums around the world: Alberto Burri, inspired by a of the most famous expressions of the Umbrian artist, the Cretti.
Works that recall the fissures of the clayey lands, when the drought reaches its apex that Burri created by spreading a poultice of white, zinc and vinyl glues on cellotex surfaces, square or rectangular, adding colored earths if the work were to present different shades or colors, then relying on the drying process. Worth mentioning among all is the enormous shroud over the old town of Gibellina, destroyed by the earthquake in 1968, the Grande Cretto considered one of the largest, but also symbolic works of Land Art ever created. As well as the monumental crests of 5 meters in height for the Capodimonte and Los Angeles museums.
And his name is “Gran Cretto – tribute to A.Burri” the first of a series of Signatures inspired by art and society created by the Chef of Pasticceria Bompiani, with the stated intention of “Going beyond. Being able to overcome the pre-established schemes, trying to give depth and value to a dessert. give to pastry a different meaning from that of references to childhood, undermining the technique and the mere elaboration of noble raw materials”.
2021, Walter Musco's tenth year at the head of Pasticceria Bompiani therefore intends to mark a turning point for the laboratory. A year of great evolutions that begin with the first Signature limited edition (60 pieces in total) of a series dedicated to those artists who with their work have clearly influenced the evolution of the chef's pastry, a top pastry chef who studied as a cook who had a background as a gallery owner, an esthete in love with beauty who transfers his lived in spectacular creations inspired by the works of great artists
If the Cretto has crystallized the violent fury of the earth, and the consequent drama, in a candid work of brutal concrete that condenses desolation, memory and hope but also wants to express elegance, meaning and feeling of the Sicilian land, in the cake created by Walter Musco l he idea is to be able to "break", "scratch" the Gran Cretto to see and taste its deepest essence, the intense color of the mulberries, some of the most representative but least used fruits of the Sicilian land, in contrast with the candor external. The shortcrust pastry and the flakes of Sicilian almonds balance the minerality of the mulberry and give consistency to the two different preparations of the mousse and gelèe of a bright crimson.
For the realization, one was designed and then used 3D printing silicone mold. The production, as for the art multiples, is 60 unique and numbered specimens composed of Mulberry Mousse, Mulberry Jelly, Sicilian Almond Cremoso, Sicilian Almond Shortbread, Sicilian Almond Flakes, Silver Leaf.
Bompiani pastry shop –
Largo Benedetto Bompiani, 8
00147 Rome
