There are images that pass before our eyes without truly penetrating them—images inherently devoid of meaning, even if they are aesthetically pleasing. We observe them, comment on their beauty, and then forget them, lost amid the overcrowding of our memory and blurred by the overstimulation of our senses. Other images, perhaps glimpsed fleetingly, caught in precarious lighting conditions, or seen in moments unsuited for contemplation, instead remain with us. They are recognized as our own, retrieved from recesses of memory ordinarily inaccessible.
These images are called Archetypes, transmitted since ancestral times not through books or oral tradition, but through our very genes. They are part of our genetic heritage, standing as immobile and eternal subliminal messages along the spiral of our DNA.
Andrea Benetti’s art activates this genetic memory, awakening within us feelings, sensations, and recollections we never knew we possessed. We hear the bellowing of aurochs, the roaring of primeval deer and cave bears, the growl of the saber-toothed tiger. We feel that shiver down our spine, a vestige of when humans were covered in thick fur, when they grasped flint-tipped spears to face the struggles and dangers of the hunt. The chants of shamans accompany our spirit through torchlit tunnels deep into the caves, down into the most sacred chambers, reserved for initiates, where the deeds of ancestors are sung, where the marks of courage and fortune are tattooed upon the skin, where the bonds of the clan are cemented.
One cannot pass indifferently before Andrea Benetti’s works. They tap into all of this and more, going beyond the archetype—they are not mere reproductions of primitive sacred art. Sacred, because it speaks of the relationship with the Great Mother, with nature—the giver of life—that must be revered and loved, yet also feared, for her morality is not that of humankind. Her morality encompasses and surpasses human morality to become a universal code, equally governing man, stone, beast, and tree.
Benetti’s works are not mere reproductions but rather revivals of a primordial worldview, where humans are seamlessly integrated into the cycle of nature. His figures do not gaze upon the world with the eyes of a child—not with an infantile gaze—but rather with the eyes of one unburdened by the mental constructs accumulated over centuries and millennia of philosophical reasoning. They are mature, conscious eyes, wide open in the present moment, witnessing the beauty, majesty, and sacredness of life. They do not seek to photograph, analyze, or exploit it—but rather to be absorbed into it.
Art is not solely composed of aesthetic marks. Material itself holds its own meaning, and once again, Andrea Benetti transcends artistic categories, creating works that go beyond painting and sculpture, employing diverse and unconventional materials, techniques of refined simplicity or intricate naïveté. Once again, we witness the mechanism of the sacred: a weathered tree trunk is imbued with dignity, a bare stone is adorned with apotropaic signs, surfaces of earth, parchment, and canvas become mirrors of the soul, multiplying sensations and rekindling memories of a lost innocence.
Visiting this exhibition means embarking on a journey inward, not in search of the child within—this is not naïve art—but rather to rediscover the authentic human being. The so-called evolution of humanity has buried this being under layers of intellectual debris, blinding it from seeing things as they truly are, from perceiving the divine essence that dwells in all things—objects, plants, animals. This journey is about finding and restoring that recognition, with the same innocence as the first human who opened their eyes to nature, both around and within them—not as something separate, but as an inseparable part of it.
There is no naïveté in this art, for it is a complete vision of life. In it, we find the wonder of primitive humanity, its spirituality and worldview, brought into modern times—ancient and contemporary at once, or, to put it more precisely: eternal and immortal.