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Since its inception, the Cinema, the art of moving images, has generated an incredible amount of still images. Photographs and movie posters accompanied the movie, trying to fix in time what was fleeting by nature. Aestethic considerations, poster composition , choice of colors, graphic depiction of the characters and relation between copy and image aside, with the passing of time, what was originally merely a byproduct acquired historical value. Poster art has become a socio-cultural reference for the habits, mindset, lifestyles, and mores of the times. Not only are important values, taboos and controversial issues highlighted, but also those topics able to seduce or shock a given society.
Whether on city and town walls or in the halls of theaters, the movie poster needs to draw attention using a simple and immediately identifiable message, capable at the same time of highlighting, attracting, and suggesting.
The sixties section of the Maurizio Baroni Collection has an exceptional reference value in the way it communicates and teases the viewer with movie promises of emotions, fun, adventure, lust, and/or shocking situations. Basically, it gives in to the voyeuristic pleasure of observing a world which is at the same time close and distant, a world of attractive women and virile male figures interwoven in either funny or dramatic virtual experiences lived on the screen.
The hundreds of icons grouped in this book are the legacy of a popular art form based on eroticism and violence, the staples of any spectacular show. These images were used to draw people into darkened rooms at a time when TV had not yet forever altered the way we interact, a time when the movie theater were filled with a vibrating crowd that wanted to laugh or cry watching ephemeral shadows on the screen.
Jean Gily  |
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Maurizio Baroni with
Gina Lollobrigida
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