The bronze statue of Perseus with the head of Medusa, which you can still find in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria, is a unique sculptural achievement, which the artist Benvenuto Cellini completed in Florence between 1545 and 1554.
The statue of course has plenty of political references and contemporary allusions, which I won’t examine here, but more than its public iconography what made the piece so relevant is the epic of its forging, as heroically narrated in Cellini’s own Autobiography.
The artist’s #storytelling, describing his monumental effort to complete the work, added a new value to his own gesture, shifting the act of making from an artisanal to a critical dimension and reconfiguring #authorship from anonymous work (statues were not signed) into a key component of the artwork’s meaning. For the first time with Perseus (in parallel with Vasari’s lives of artists, published over the same years), #art acquires its value from the discourse that surrounds it—whether a critical appraisal or narration. From that moment onward, making becomes inseparable from #mythmaking.
If we apply this logic applies to #brands, and in particular to Italian #manufacturing and #branding, the making of products is similarly inextricable from the making of their aura. Mythmaking is the quintessential value of many Italian products, giving them “delight” or “incanto” (in Riccardo Illy’s words). Think of Ferrari without legend, of Ferrero without the glow of Nutella, of Armani without glamor... Designing a product is parallel to designing its #meaning. Designing a #story is designing the product’s ultimate #value.
More on the relationship between #storytelling #advertising and #design in the Italian milieu at 👉 https://lnkd.in/e-4atiZk
#italianinnovators
Cosmetics, Skin Care & Fragrance Specialist
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