Some places make more of a mark in the virtual world than ever they do on maps. A mere pinpoint on a chart, a spot that cartographers imply might be taken or left at will, can turn out to be a busy crossroads on the internet - a place where the hubble bubble of virtual life rarely subsides into silence. Of course, there are communities, even some whole kingdoms, that exist only in virtual space. One of our favourites is Schlaraffenland, a splendid affectation of the late seventeenth century German writer Johann Schnebelin. Conceived, it would appear, by a dedicated carnivore, Schlaraffenland is a territory where chickens, geese, and pigeons fly around already cooked and waiting to be eaten, and every house is surrounded by a hedge of sausage. Modern web worlds play with the boundaries of virtuality, even creating utopian nations like Bergonia or Verduria.
Barga, a small town in northern Tuscany, is indeed no more than a dot on the map, but one that contrives to combine virtuality with reality in a manner that is the envy of many another community. The town's website at www.barganews.com receives some two million hits a year - not bad for a place that gets barely a mention in the tourist guides. Barga is a little hilltop town that is tucked away in the Garfagnana - that corner of Tuscany that happily has avoided the crowds that jostle for space in Florence and Siena. Barga looks out across the Serchio valley to the Apuane Alps, with their chestnut groves and the whiter than white stone that has made Carrara a household name. The tourists go to the walled city of Lucca for its Romanesque churches, to Massa and Carrara to gaze at the huge quarries whence marble is hewn, and to Pisa to photograph a tower that somehow defies gravity. But few make it to Barga. Adam J Shardlow reports from a town where reality lives up to the promise of its website.
An unlikely spring rainstorm decanted over the entire valley, rendering the wipers almost useless and making it impossible to see out of the windscreen. The headlamps threw a pathetic light onto the soaked road that twisted and turned alarmingly as it climbed the hill. To my right a vertical drop, cliffs dotted with pine vanished into the dark abyss below. Occasional flashes of lightning seared the hillside, highlighting bruised clouds rolling across the sky, as the engine of the small car hesitated on a steep bend. At the very crest of the hill, the steeply wooded hillsides suddenly gave way to reveal the Duomo of Barga, the illuminated clock tower a welcoming beacon on this stormy night.
The following day the storm had passed and crisp sunlight filtered down from spring skies. The light in Barga is often dazzling; in summer it takes on the rich golden hues of the Mediterranean sun; in winter it has a glacial purity that reveals the beauty of the country that surrounds the town; in spring it brings new life to rocky crevices where lizards have slumbered for the winter.
The hilltop town of Barga has become familiar to me as a home, a hideaway, and a retreat that serves as a counterpoint to the bustle of Tuscany’s celebrated cities where tourists crowd galleries and churches that drip with art. But Barga has its art too. Writers, poets, musicians and sculptors have sought out the place. Some have passed through leaving a simple mark or lasting tribute to the town. For many, Barga becomes a seasonal migration, as they are drawn back each year to spend a few months under the town’s spell, while others find their talent ensnared by Barga’s willing ways and are unable ever to leave.
I wanted to speak to Keane, an artist who has lived in the area for twenty years. He has become the chronicler of the town, the bard of Barga, both through his paintings and his photographs, but also through his commitment to modernity by maintaining the Barga website. Could Keane perhaps pinpoint this small town’s secret? Why has Barga become such a mecca for those who value culture and creativity?
It could not be simply because the place is attractive, for that’s an attribute that many a Tuscan town can boast. Barga is indeed beautiful in a crumbling and ragged sort of way. But it doesn’t have the monumental elegance of San Gimignano or the stunning setting of some of the towns further south — like Volterra, Sorano and Pitigliano. And Barga’s modest success in attracting artists is not because it has its finger on the pulse of any cultural zeitgeist. To be sure, Keane keeps the world abreast of the stories and events of the area but the name Barga does not fall automatically from the lips of those who pronounce where living art is to be found. True, it is only an hour’s drive from the Renaissance museum city of Florence, but then most of the visitors there have gone to view the art of the dead, and having had their fill, they head south to the holiday play land of ‘Chiantishire’ rather than north into the hills and valleys where Barga lies hidden.
I met Keane in Aristo’s. This is a bar barely big enough for twenty people on the inside with a few benches set outside for those who wish to commune with the street. Within Barga, Aristo’s acts as the local club. It is not just any bar. This is the Ur-Bar, that bar of the mind, the bar that lies deep in our subconscious, a spot that is amiable, intimate and safe. It is the quintessential bar of small town Italy. From the striped awning over the door, to the marble table tops and the chrome coffee machine that hisses and spits in the corner as it serves up round after round of thick dark espressi, Aristo’s is the place to be.
Marino presides. He is squat and strong, with his hair cut short. He nods and smiles if he remembers you from your last visit. The wine is poured out of large demijohns that sit on the floor, their heavy glass bottoms wrapped in wicker. The wine is decanted into smaller jars that sit on a table. They are still heavy; the jars are swung around by Marino in a practised parabola. A carafe is filled, and the deep red wine slops over and onto the thickly veined marble of the table top.
Keane sips the wine and talks about the reality of everyday life in Barga. The place informs his work. He sees art in the contrived sculpture of an ice cream dessert, music in the hum of a full restaurant, or — Keane’s most recent venture — in lines of underwear hung out to dry! Keane’s art is unsentimental to the point of being blunt. Life is art. He asserts “the stones of Barga, just look at the ground, the stones you walk on every day, they’re beautiful things.”
Keane’s own paintings and photographs are perfect Barga, a world apart from the carefully constructed Tuscan countryside with its oh-so-perfect cypress trees and undulating hills. “When I lived in the city I would do large abstract paintings,” he explains. “But Barga is not about large abstract paintings … where would you put them? Where could you look at those things? Barga is more human in scale; so the work has to be smaller.”
“I make an exhibition with fifty paintings or a hundred photographs … you have to see all of those objects in their entirety, not as individual pieces,” says Keane, drawing the parallel between his work and the town itself; the town’s energy finds expression in the ensemble rather than in a single image.
Barga is not just a spot for the visual arts. Performance features too, as theatre and opera compete for slots in the festival programme at the Teatro dei Differenti. The theatre balances traditional and experimental performances. I remember sitting in the dark watching a ‘challenging’ operatic version of Frankenstein; it was the sort of avant-garde interpretation that might have a short run in a large city but would never normally make it out to the more conservative venues of a small town.
And there is music too. In Aristo’s bar, there is a selection of musical instruments; these are the heartbeats of Barga, ready and waiting for anyone to play. Rarely does an evening go by without someone calling for music. A small organ is covered by a cloth, protecting it from dust. If Aristo, the elderly owner of the bar, is in good humour he will play. He chatters away in Italian “What do you want next? Huh, do you know this one,” and he launches into an old song. You may not know the words, you may not even understand most of them but you tap your foot and nod approvingly.
“The real artists in Barga at the moment are the musicians,” says Keane, “there is an incredible amount of music here … it’s talked about all the time.” And it’s not just Barga. The villages around too. One place, with a population of just 700, is able to field its own full orchestra.
Music is to be found in the annual jazz festival and every fiesta requires at least one band and dancing long into the night. Impromptu music is created in the bars or even on the streets. Instruments appear as if from the ether and a new tune is learnt or an old standard trotted out for the pleasure of the gathering audience. This is not the music of the occasional player but music that has real quality.
The Barga jazz festival, about to enter its twentieth year, attracts some of the best known names from around the world. Lee Konitz recently played, quite a coup for Barga to secure the presence of an artist who would normally only be found playing the big festivals. Run by one local family, the jazz festival has remained small and intimate, somehow mirroring Barga itself. Keane explains: “I think it’s a special thing … they want to keep it small, they are after quality, they want the level of musicians to be high and they are, but they are not that worried about making it into a huge mega concert.”
Perhaps that sums up how Barga views its art; it is not interested in the big and brash, the commercial or far reaching. Keane recalls how so easily things can get out of hand: “I used to live in Provence … someone wrote a book ‘A Year in Provence’ and it destroyed the town. All the bars became English bars, house prices soared, rents rose, food went up … it just became impossible to live there. I left and came to live here. I don’t want that to happen again.”
The Barga news website has become a way for the community to reach out to the rest of the world. Keane sees it as a two way education, “There are two issues here. We need to address both visitors to Barga and those who live in the town. If we can show people before they arrive what they are going to find, the jazz, the opera, the artists working here, the fact that people still live in a community, the fact that people still sit down and eat together around the table once or twice a day as a family, that people spend time with each other ... If we can show that that is still happening then perhaps it will attract a certain type of person. And then, too, the website addresses people in Barga, helping them to get a feel for what it means to accept foreign tourists.”
It certainly seems to be working well — barganews.com might have started small but it has grown at an impressive rate. It now receives around five thousand visitors a day and acts as a lifeline to those who cannot live in the town all year round. From anywhere in the world I can now log on and find out what has been happening in Barga, what the talk on the streets is today. “At least one new article is added every day,” says Keane. “In the summer perhaps three or four a day. It’s now become a part of the culture here.”
The website reflects the make up of the town, “when you come into Barga’s central area, there are no signs showing directions; you just have to wander around and find your own way, you sort of wander up to the Duomo at the top of the town and then you can amble back down again, it’s not really signposted … I wanted to make a site that reflected that. I didn’t want a site where everything is obvious. I wanted you to turn a corner on the site and discover something you had not seen before. There are lots of hidden links, so the website has became a game, a way of making a virtual Barga.”
In Aristo’s bar, the night wears on, the conversation flits back and forth, locals and visitors shuffle in and out, some stay all evening, others come just for one drink and a chat. Stories and work are discussed, the local news, the latest crazy idea by the government, all accompanied by raised eyebrows or shrugged shoulders and shaking heads.
Someone picks up a small string instrument and plays a few bars, tuning as he goes. The small knot of people in the bar quietens as the carafes are refilled. Politics and news may be one thing, but for now we have music and wine … music and wine. Let the band play on.
