Follow me:
Notte di Carnevale, 2018
"Venise, voilà son secret, est un amplificateur.
voici le lieu magique et futur dont tous les artistes et les esprits libres témoignent.”
Night photography carnival Venice 2018
CREATUM CIVITAM LAUDENS- Carnevale Venezia 2018 -
Carnival Venice 2018 night
” Venise, voilà son secret, est un amplificateur. Si vous êtes heureux, vous le serez dix fois plus…Venise n’est pas un musée, mais une création constante…voici le lieu magique et futur dont tous les artistes et les esprits libres témoignent.” Philippe Sollers
Carnival Venice 2018 night
Taking my last shots in “San Giorgio Maggiore”, I look up to notice that night has fallen in Venice. Its enveloping darkness blurs the architectural forms of the famous “Bacino” and dreamily blankets the gondolas that glide along the “Canal Grande” . I realize also that I have lost sight of my friend Marco, an extraordinary Venetian carnival artist, in the large crowd of masks, tourists and photographers.
The river of revelers leads me to the center of the San Marco Square. With the basilica behind me, to my left I see the Florian Cafe under the long arcade of the “Procuratie Nuove”.
This scene of Venice, with the night, the Carnival and the Café Florian, together with the ever-present spirit of its most famous “habitué”, Giacomo Casanova, add an extra dose of magic and mystery to the moment in this beautiful city.
Carnival Venice 2018 night
The extravagant and impractical beauty of “La Serenissima” is suffused in glamor, intrigue, and the pursuit of pleasure.
Venice, symbol of inhibition and debauchery, is refined to its essence here tonight in the form of the Carnival and in the legendary Florian Cafe.
I remain standing outside, glued to this spectacle, contemplating the past, the present, the whole universe, all within that “confessional”, as Lord Byron referred to it.
I see Venetian nobles with ambassadors, merchants, fortune hunters, men of letters, artists, religious and ordinary citizens. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is sitting next to Madame de Staël and Chateaubriand, Charles Dickens talks to Marcel Proust while Casanova is engaged in the task of procuring a new female companion.
Suddenly I spot Marco, his Nikon camera resting on a nearby table, while he chats with Christine and Josef, his favorite friends and models at the Carnival. I am brought swiftly back to the present and feel a sense of relief, as I was not prepared for such a overwhelming cocktail of sensations. I am reminded that Venice, as Phillipe Sollers said, is an amplifier of emotions. If one is happy, in Venice one will be ten times more so. I am also struck by the realization that the city in the lagoon is not a museum of the past, but a living creation, a magical place of past, present and future, to which all artists and free spirits can testify.
The Carnival of Venice in the eighteenth century, the century during which it reached its decadent height and transformed the city into a host of the fantastic, where any wish can come true and nothing is impossible.
This is how Venice became the European temple of pleasure and play, of masks, recklessness, and liberation.
By virtue of the Carnival, Venice was metamorphosed, and it has remained the most intriguing and seductive symbol of the City of Canals for hundreds of years.
I invite you to step back centuries in time with these images and to release your spirit on a Carnival night.
Pablo Munini © Mexico city , February 2019
Carnival Venice 2018 night
[insta-gallery id=”1″]