Pierre Boulat
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Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Pre-estrucan stelae in Tremoli museum. These steles are not marble but are the first manifestation of statuary in Carrara. Anonymous and unidentified, they were found in the mountains surrounding Carrara. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Michelangelo's David in the Academy of Florence. Room slaves. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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In Lucas, 80 kms from Carrara, lying Bella Dona Ilaria del Carretto, in the Duomo, is considered by connoisseurs as the symbol of the most beautiful sculpture and the most beautiful marble work ever done. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The "Galleria ", a huge cave dug by humans. It is the only marble mine in the world. Elsewhere, the marble is always open pit mining. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Mount Altissimo is the highest career in the area. 1589 meters high. It belongs to the Henraux Company, which is the largest operator in the region. The founder of this company, Mr. Henraux had been sent by Napoleon in Carrara, during campaigns in Italy in the early 19th century in order to explore and exploit the marble on behalf of the French government who was using a large amount for palaces and monuments. Henraux family no longer exists, but the name stuck and the company is a limited company. Mount Altissimo is a huge block of marble, probably the biggest block of marble in the world. They extract three different kinds of marble, which are considered the most beautiful in the world: Tacca Bianca, the Statuario and Bianco Puro. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Worker on Mount Altissimo. They use steel ladders to climb to the top careers and blocks. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Mario Macjetti has been working on Mount Altissimo for 25 years -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Workers at lunch. Some prefer to eat in the career itself. But most workers go for lunch in restaurants installed by operators on the site of the quarry. At Henraux, Mount Altissimo, they lunch on marble tables. Employees work 11 hours a day and fatigue can be read on their faces. They are also entitled to take a little rest in the canteen during the day between meals. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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In Forno, near Carrara, on saturday night Alberti family is preparing to enjoy the traditional Polenta served by their mother Adele. All around the table Rodolfo's father, a former worker in marble, and his children and grandchildren. Rodolfo had all the fingers of his right hand cut by the coil wire used to cut the marble quarries. This is a very common accident and still a subject of curiosity for his grandchildren who non stop ask him: "The wolf really rated your fingers?" -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Carrara is the birthplace of anarchy. Anarchists are still legion. Their meeting center, is a bookstore. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Serra, a torrent coming down from the quarries white with the marble dust it brings with it. This torrent carries marble stones, shaped by the current that "Marmolini" come to pick up for sale. This is the only place where one can find such pebbles and these women are the last survivors of the old marmolini. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The Carrara River. Its waters are used by workers to wet the saws in marble workshops. It is white because of the marble dust and one can see the contrast with the clear waters of another river that flows into the Fiume Carrara. It is frequently called "the river of milk." -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The village of Colonnata named after the ancient Roman slave working in the quarries. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Aerial view of Mount Altissimo great career that stands like a medieval fortress. The white streaks are cast marble. Some pictures and Altissimo Colonnata with the spaghetti roads that lead to the quarries. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The spaghetti roads that lead to the quarries -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The Jollia. Usually blocks of marble, which are normally smaller than this one, are cut with a wire coil, which is somewhat like a thread cutting butter. Sometimes, however, exceptionally huge blocks, like this one, which weighs about 700 tons, are naturally more or less detached from the mountain. In this case, the workers use a jack to crack the block following the vein marble. After 13 hours, when the fault is complete the bulldozers pour in huge blocks of marble crack to help the song become dislodged and fall. It took 10 tons of marble pieces to move and drop this block. It fell on a bed of stones prepared in advance to cushion his fall. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The Jollia. Usually blocks of marble, which are normally smaller than this one, are cut with a wire coil, which is somewhat like a thread cutting butter. Sometimes, however, exceptionally huge blocks, like this one, which weighs about 700 tons, are naturally more or less detached from the mountain. In this case, the workers use a jack to crack the block following the vein marble. After 13 hours, when the fault is complete the bulldozers pour in huge blocks of marble crack to help the song become dislodged and fall. It took 10 tons of marble pieces to move and drop this block. It fell on a bed of stones prepared in advance to cushion his fall. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The Jollia. Usually blocks of marble, which are normally smaller than this one, are cut with a wire coil, which is somewhat like a thread cutting butter. Sometimes, however, exceptionally huge blocks, like this one, which weighs about 700 tons, are naturally more or less detached from the mountain. In this case, the workers use a jack to crack the block following the vein marble. After 13 hours, when the fault is complete the bulldozers pour in huge blocks of marble crack to help the song become dislodged and fall. It took 10 tons of marble pieces to move and drop this block. It fell on a bed of stones prepared in advance to cushion his fall. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The Lizzatura: every year, workers marble conduct a reenactment of the old methods used to get the marble blocks in the valley before the appearance of roads and trucks. Marble blocks, like this, about 20 tons each, were in ancient times pulled down through direct channels called Lizza, with the only help of human arm. While the cables attached to the top of the Lizza held the block, the men were moving on a treadmill logs. Resting on wooden runners, the block moved slowly, block by block, while men relocating to the front of the block turn the logs they withdrew after its passage. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The stone blocks are now going down on the back of the truck. They are loaded directly into quarries and descend into the valley on often very steep roads. Here the trucks are going down in the valley Colonnata. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The stone blocks are now going down on the back of the truck. They are loaded directly into quarries and descend into the valley on often very steep roads. Then through the narrow streets of the city towards the factories and/or the harbor. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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In Pomezzan, in the mountains above Carrara, family Pietro Milani had, for centuries, dedicated to the manufacture of swords and steel blades for nobles. For a hundred years, the family has specialized in the manufacture of tools for working marble. The whole family is involved in the business. All tools are handmade, and these people are the only ones to make them even so. Their catalog contains 160 different parts, only tools for marble exported worldwide. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Heads abandoned of Eva and Juan Peron, in a corner, in Henraux. These statues were commissioned by the Argentine dictator. They were canceled by the regime that succeeded him and demanded further that the two statues were decapitated. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Factory of Tito Bianchi Cecina Tuscany. Some reproductions of Michelangelo's David, which are among the 450,000 different specimens of statuary art reproduced in this factory. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The workshop Palla in Pietra Santa, It will take another year to complete the three-dimensional reproduction in marble of the Birth of Venus by Botticelli for a California foundation. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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At Nicoli, a worker carries a sculpture on an idea proposed by the sculptor Bertanelli Bemimino. The model provided by the sculptor in plaster is not far from the worker who will perform at a much larger scale. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Giorgio Giacomelli ending hand a sculpture for Zuniga. This man is the only worker in Nicoli actually able to finish a sculpture. All the sculptures of this workshop go through his hands in the final stage. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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At Henraux studio, a worker is making a reproduction full size of a Fiat Topolino car -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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This huge marble thumb is the exact reproduction of the finger of a prince of Saudi Arabia. it was performed at Nicoli by French sculptor Cesar who took 75 days to make a perfect impression of the finger prince. It took 400 days to complete the work in marble which is 6 meters high and weighs 25 tonnes, and now stands on a street in Jeddah. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Worker in a workshop in Carrare -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Suzan Falkman, American sculptor who lives in Carrara for over a year. Like many young foreign artists she came here to perfect her art and more easily work marble, within reach of his hand. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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American sculptor Frank Gillian, specializing in fruits and vegetables marble. It took four different kinds of marble to make this watermelon. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Gigi Guadagnuci Italian sculptor working in the garden of his studio in Massa. He is considered as the man who made the heaviest birds in the world. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Gio Pomodoro, Italian sculptor member of the Communist party. His latest sculpture is called "Luogo di Mesura". It is the symbol of the possibility of the existence and illustrates the duality, alchemy and orientation. This work was made for a rich Saudi. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Kenneth Davies, American sculptor, and the fountain ordered to him by the city of Carrara for the main square of the city. His "floating ball" he made with the help of Mario Fruendi, owner of the newest studio in Carrara, is actually a marble ball that turns with the water pressure, giving the illusion of floating. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Gonzalo Fonseca, American sculptor, regarded as one of the best contemporary sculptors, as well as Noguchi. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Roberto Bernacchi, Italian sculptor in front of one of works. He has a very particular version on the controversy over MIchel Angel. As he said, the hammer he is holding is a symbolic relic, one might say, belonged to Michelangelo. "Why not?" -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The studio S.G.F. in Torano. Adjustment of a giant sculpture of the Dutch sculptor Jos Wong Hing Vu -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Tu, the Chinese sculptor from Taiwan, working in studio Henraux on the realization of a bust of Chiang Kai Tcheck. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The second sculpture symposium organized by the city of Carrara on Alberica site. In the center of the square, the statue of Princess Beatrice, the benefactor of the city. 36 sculptors from different countries participate in this event. They have 14 days to produce a work from a rough block of marble. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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An anonymous sculptor discussing his work with Gigi Guadagnuci, jury member of the 1981 symposium -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Suzan Falkman during the symposium -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The French sculptor Jean-Pierre Filippi at work. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Manufacture of marble Figaia. This huge marble surface (250 square meters) made of pink marble from Portugal is intended to cover the walls of the new television center in Riyadh. The work was delicate and adjustment of different roses to give a unity of tone not as easy as it seems at first. The plant also produced marble decoration of 10 hotels in the United States, including Cesar Las Vegas. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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The factory Giananti Lori in Carrara. This plant is currently working on the implementation of 20 marble columns, each measuring 5.50 meters and weighing 6 tons, for the new mosque of the Saudi royal family in Jeddah. This order represents four months of work for the family Giananti while 4 other factories working at Carrara pavement and walls of the mosque. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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A marble factory specializing in the block size slices. Here different colors of marble onyx, yellow, black Belgium, Portugal rose, white statuary Carrara. The Carrara has become an important global center for tributary of marble from around the world that will be worked here before being transported to their final destination. -
Carrara : Madness and frenzy of marble
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Cararra ' s harbor
Carrara
Madness and frenzy of marble
One say that the marbble talks, understands and can make you crazy. The willing of touching it, possessing it and make it and the bend can become an iressitible impulsion. To realize that you have to go to Carraren small city in >Tosabyn at the foot of the apuanes alps, a few kilometers north of Pise.There, and in the surrouding villages, one can only see, speak and think marbble. The passion stone seeps insidiously that you also air loaded air marble dust that you breath there. The roads leading to the squarries writhe between ash and chestnut like tongues petrified lined with blocks that seem forsaken. Every where, sawmills, disorderly, crowded; sweet whitish torrents and when you see a house, nestled between two cyprus trees, you can see on the front, ocher and red, the doorways and windows are solid marble. As the steles in the cimeteries, the top of the tables in the cafés and the pavement of the squares.
It is here, on Mount Altissimo above Seravezza, that Michel Angelo, used to come to choose his blocks of raw marble. His supposed presence has helped Carrare to become one of the first centers for sculptors. They might be up to 200 who live in the dust of the marbre which becomes embedded in the pores of their skin and benefit from the equipment needed for working marbble that the cooperative or the various workshops provide them.
For National Geographic Magazine