The fire

Impalpable, dynamic, destructive and transformative fire. It meant terror in the earliest societies, then was gradually controlled and bent to human needs, for cooking food, metal casting, shaping tools. Fire at the origin of cultural identities. Light in the universe and in men's home, warmth for all life and for survival in the cold season.

Fire of the burning bush, image of the invisible biblical God. Reality of Seraphims, burning with love, Brother Fire in Saint Francis of Assisi's Canticle. Baptism of fire, baptism that burns and transforms at the root, not mere sprinkling, but rebirth from the ashes of the old man. Fire of loving and creative tension, fire of art that reshapes life as in a crucible.

The artists of the Ucai (Italian catholic union of artists), section of Trento, have turned their attention this year to fire, through many references, scriptural ones or from the history of thought. Now the forms of expression produced by each artist communicate different sensitivities, accents placed on one or another of the many senses in which fire, always caught in the uncanny descent from heaven, concerns us.