The main material for the floats of the Viareggio Carnival is papier-mâché, or more precisely, cast paper. Perfected by Viareggio painter and builder Antonio D’Arliano in 1925, it has enabled the creation of increasingly large yet lightweight structures. Clay models, plaster molds, newspaper, and glue made from water and flour are the ingredients of the world’s greatest spectacle of its kind. The philosophy of reuse and recycling, through a unique manual technique, is the foundation of the even
All the news in the world ends up in Viareggio. Yes, because tons of newspaper sheets kneaded with the simplest and most natural glue, water and flour, are needed to make the giant floats.
The raw material of the Viareggio Carnival floats is papier-mâché. Perfected by the painter and builder from Viareggio Antonio D’Arliano in 1925, it has allowed the creation of increasingly large yet lightweight works. Clay models, plaster casts, newspaper, and flour-and-water glue are the ingredients of the greatest show of its kind. The philosophy of recovery and recycling, through a unique manual technique, forms the basis of the event.
Thanks to papier-mâché, the builders of Viareggio can create real traveling theatres. Over 20 meters high and12 meters wide, the floats are designed to amaze and engage the audience during parades. The scenic impact, the care in shaping and coloring, the music, the liveliness of the costumed figures on board, and the choreography and costumes, combined with the spectacular movements that defy the laws of physics, make these constructions unique spectacles.
The master builders of Viareggio create the festive papier-mâché floats: 21 artisan companies, with hundreds of people at work. Every year, at the end of the parades, a jury ranks the floats. The magical place, the stage for this creativity, is the Cittadella, where the artisan-artists of the Carnival create the grand allegorical floats that parade along the Seaside Promenade in Viareggio.
This craft technique, used by artists in other fields such as scenography, furniture design, and objects, is easy and can be applied in schools, from kindergarten to high school, as an independent expressive language. It allows for the combination of multiple themes. From concept design to the supporting structure, from clay shaping to plaster molding, and from paper application to colouring.
Necessary materials
- Gray and pink newspaper
- Clay
- Glue made from water and flour
- Plaster
- Reeds
- Wood
- Wire
- Modeling sticks
- Paint and brushes
- Blades (plastic or metal)
How to make a papier-mâché sculpture
- First, conceive, design and color the subject of the sketch.
- Build the framework that will support the clay using reeds, wood, and wire.
- Cover the framework with clay that will be shaped by hand and with some simple tools (like sticks).
- Insert blades into the clay model that will allow the two moulds to detach.
- Using a large brush, spray plaster over the clay model, covering it completely. Once the plaster has dried, by removing the blades, two concave moulds will be obtained.
- Apply pieces of newspaper to the concave plaster mould, making sure they adhere well. Continue by layering alternating strips of grey and pink paper, brushing them with flour glue. Repeat the process on the other concave mould.
- Let the paper applied to the plaster moulds dry thoroughly. Once the paper is completely dry and hardened, detach the coverings obtained from the plaster moulds.
- Join the two parts obtained.
- At this point, Burlamacco’s recipe is complete, it just takes paint, brushes, and imagination to paint the carnival mask.
Burlamacco, the official costumed character of the Viareggio Carnival, first appeared on the 1931 poster designed by artist Uberto Bonetti, a painter, a graphic designer and a set designer. A symbol of the Viareggio event, it is the latest addition to the traditional characters of the Commedia Dell’Arte.
The chessboard clothes of the Arlecchino, the black cloak of Dottor Balanzone, Pierrot‘s pom-pom, Rugantino‘s hat and Capitan Spaventa‘s ruff taken apart and reassembled according to the interpretations typical of Futurism, are the elements of Burlamacco‘s costume and contain the essential and dynamic traits of avant-garde aesthetics: Uberto Bonetti, just twenty-one years old, created a synthesis of the most recognizable and interesting elements of the traditional Commedia Dell’Arte characters.
Burlamacco was presented in 1939 during a party in Firenze. On that occasion Bonetti gave the character his pseudonym Burlamacco. The name was liked and easily spread for its cultured and popular assonances that recalled:
- Buffalmacco, a 14th century Florentine painter who in Giovanni Boccaccio’s novels made fun of the gullible and defended himself from the harassment of patrons with his pranks.
- Burlamacca, the name of the emissary canal of Lake Massaciuccoli at the mouth of which the port and then the city of Viareggio arose; in turn, the watercourse was named after the noble Burlamacchi family from Lucca.
Ondina, a symbol of summer
Burlamacco‘s first appearance was on the 1931 Carnival poster. In the image he arrives from the sea, walking on the parallel piers of Viareggio, at his side a bather named Ondina, a sunny image of the summer to be spent on the beach of Viareggio. With a swimsuit typical of 1930s fashion, she is the emblem of the bathing season, of summer, of vacationing Viareggio.
Together the two figures are icons of the two seasons of the city of Viareggio: summer and Carnival.
A student at the Institute of Fine Arts in Lucca under Lorenzo Viani, Uberto Bonetti (1909-1993) mainly dedicated himself to graphics and painting, although his interests and collaborations extended to architecture, cinema and fashion. In the Versilia area frequented by many artists of Italian culture, he met Luigi Pirandello, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Primo Conti, Krimer, Curzio Malaparte and many politicians, of whom he made caricatures.
He collaborated throughout his life with the Carnival and the Viareggio Literary Prize, remaining tied to intellectuals such as Riccardo Bacchelli, Alberto Moravia, Elsa Morante, Cesare Zavattini, Eugenio Montale, and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
