Illustrated Travel Itineraries
The two of them travel in the same car, on the same train, on the same ship. The writer looks out and takes notes in his travel diary, while the painter observes and outlines his first sketches on his drawing pad. The first is Giovanni Pirelli, who later writes in Pirelli magazine under the pseudonym Franco Fellini, and the second is Renato Guttuso. It is the winter of 1959 and they are going down the Nile from Aswan to the delta. The long diary of the two friends’ travels in Egypt with their wives is both inspiring and amusing. “Guttuso grits his teeth, sweats, suffers, never gives in, and continues to draw”: the painter is struck down by tropical fever but that will not prevent him from creating his wonderful illustrations. It is a wintery Sunday in 1952, on the other hand, when the writer Michele Prisco sets off for the Amalfi Coast with his family in his Fiat 1100: their friend, the artist Gennaro Borrelli is with them in the car, “with his bottle of India ink and drawing folder.” All the writer needs is his fountain pen and a notebook, which he always has in his pocket. The rest is all in the writer’s brisk prose and in the little churches, towers, and shepherds traced out by Borrelli: “Wherever did these artists end up – just to paint!”. In an article for the magazine in 1964, with watercolour illustrations by Giuseppe Ajmone, his travelling companion, Raffaello Baldini takes us to Abruzzo. In 1961 Ernesto Treccani travels through Spain and becomes both narrator and illustrator for the magazine. He draws the eyes of a little girl, Conchita, the olive trees in Cordoba, and the white rose of Seville. But when faced with the green of the orange groves, he wonders: “how can one render that green on white with just a humble spot of ink?” The answer can still be seen in the pages of Pirelli magazine.
The two of them travel in the same car, on the same train, on the same ship. The writer looks out and takes notes in his travel diary, while the painter observes and outlines his first sketches on his drawing pad. The first is Giovanni Pirelli, who later writes in Pirelli magazine under the pseudonym Franco Fellini, and the second is Renato Guttuso. It is the winter of 1959 and they are going down the Nile from Aswan to the delta. The long diary of the two friends’ travels in Egypt with their wives is both inspiring and amusing. “Guttuso grits his teeth, sweats, suffers, never gives in, and continues to draw”: the painter is struck down by tropical fever but that will not prevent him from creating his wonderful illustrations. It is a wintery Sunday in 1952, on the other hand, when the writer Michele Prisco sets off for the Amalfi Coast with his family in his Fiat 1100: their friend, the artist Gennaro Borrelli is with them in the car, “with his bottle of India ink and drawing folder.” All the writer needs is his fountain pen and a notebook, which he always has in his pocket. The rest is all in the writer’s brisk prose and in the little churches, towers, and shepherds traced out by Borrelli: “Wherever did these artists end up – just to paint!”. In an article for the magazine in 1964, with watercolour illustrations by Giuseppe Ajmone, his travelling companion, Raffaello Baldini takes us to Abruzzo. In 1961 Ernesto Treccani travels through Spain and becomes both narrator and illustrator for the magazine. He draws the eyes of a little girl, Conchita, the olive trees in Cordoba, and the white rose of Seville. But when faced with the green of the orange groves, he wonders: “how can one render that green on white with just a humble spot of ink?” The answer can still be seen in the pages of Pirelli magazine.
