I might have spent my life in the world of music; yet, often, even as I played, I puzzled over the enigmas of ocean and mountain, the enigmas of the body, of sound: why was one sound more resonant than another; why were there echoes; why was a woman’s voice unlike a man’s; why were there changes in the songs of birds?
Ah, those apprentice years!
Those apprentice years!
Getting up at dawn, working before breakfast, working till late, forgetting to eat, going for a swim in the Arno, rushing back to work, forgetting to sleep; work, work, it was a beautiful thing.
I was forever gathering plants, drying them, mounting them, identifying them. I roamed alone. Good to get away from the studio. I was forever dissecting animals and birds. With every bird I asked: how does it propel itself? How can man go aloft? Those birds, those caged birds...it was right to hoard money, to buy them, to liberate them. I followed them, I sat with them, I ran with them, studying every possible angle.
I filled sketchbooks with sketches of the hawk in flight, the raven, another with the sparrow.
My glider, based on the studies of the hawk, flew around our workshop. Again and again we tested it, wondering why it flew.
Andrea had me working bronze...there was so much, so much. He was always encouraging. What a fine master. What a fine artist. Now with gold leaf, now with new pigments, now something in the way of a discovery with silverpoint.
He had so little money. Sometimes he went hungry. Sometimes we had to find money for him and his family. Little Lila, little Lila had to have a toy. Tony had to have crayons. Bread, milk.