Surprise...

To my surprise today I found my blog in a short list at Stissing Lane (pretty beautiful blogs).
I must have done something right...

Thanks Google alert... and thanks Rachel!

Continue Reading... Label: Blogging, Brillante Interiors, Thanks to

The Art's lady

We enter today in a special house in Milan, owned by Claudia Gian Ferrari, a big personality in the art world, major collector, art dealer and 1900 art historian.
Soon part of her collection will be transferred to a historic house-museum where a full room will be dedicated to it so at least, she said, she could go there and visit her loved pieces (and we could too, thanks to her generosity).

She is the daughter of Ettore Gian Ferrari, owner of the most dynamic art gallery in post war Milan and involved for 25 years with the Venice Biennale, so art is really in her blood.

"Fanciulla con passero" (Girl with sparrow) by Arturo Martini. On the wall an oil by Alberto Savinio, great artist and great writer, brother of Giorgio De Chirico.

This house speaks about art, culture, personality. The 1985 project for this house by architect Mario Bellini follows a square module for each room.

On the foreground "L'amante morta" (The dead lover) by Arturo Martini made in 1921 of polychrome plaster.

Note also the superb Biedermeier sofa in the background, crowned by Mario Sironi oil.

 

In the garden another sculpture "Il dormiente" (The sleeping man) by Martini, made of Carrara marble.

She said in an interview that building a collection is not just buying art, but it needs great passion and a project to start with. A not so subtle critic of art speculators who buy and sell without really

loving their pieces!

Art needs love, she said, and her life is dedicated to love art.

Continue Reading... Label: Antiques and Art, Brillante Interiors, Houses, Lifestyle, Milan

A pinch of salt

Today I was reading a post by the über talented blogger friend Ivan from Meade Design Group and all of a sudden I felt the urge to comment deviating from the subject, which was about style and shape of salt and pepper shakers.
I would have gone on for much longer with my comment, perhaps talking about salt used to preserve food until only recently, when ice boxes and fridges came finally to our houses, but I had to refrain myself. If you would read my comment on that post you would also find my question:
Why do we call shakers those little creatures on the table? Why do we need to shake salt and pepper? we use "a pinch" for cooking and we used for centuries a "tiny spoon" to add salt on a dish already on a table. Now we have shakers of all shapes and sizes. I own a pair myself but they are part of a tiny collection of elves from the '40s.

Going back to Ivan's post I like also the way it starts...it is true that how we set a table can speak about our personality, paper or linen napkins to start and all you can think of, after that.
I don't know how to define my personality but I certainly love to set the table in a certain way if just only for myself! I always liked to celebrate food in an appropriate way.
I also believe that sitting down every day for a meal with your children or your family is a way to celebrate life together.

What do you think?

You may like to read also
A restaurant in Milan
and please, don't forget to read my new blog on Travel

Continue Reading... Label: Blogging, Brillante Interiors, Food, Lifestyle

Japan style in Milan (Oki Sato and Nendo)

Even in a critical time (crisis or not crisis) "Made in Italy" continues to validate the new Stars of Design.
For instance Oki Sato, born in Japan in 1977 and founder of Nendo.
He was in 2005 a big promise of "Satellite Salone" (Designers under 35) at International Furniture fair in Milan and is today strongly engaged to design for Cappellini, Moroso, Varaschin, Arketipo, Boffi for a "total living concept".
In a recent interview Oki Sato explained that at University he learned this hierarchy:
development permits
architectural plans
interior construction
interior design
but when he first visited "Il Salone" a few years ago he understood that precedences can be reversed...like, he said, the ocean that starts with tiny drops of water.

  Arketipo

The Japanese group "Nendo" (offices in Tokyo and Milano) designs with:
Pure white (and a gray version)
Essential lines
Architecture as background
Abstraction
Poetry
Simplicity of forms
                       
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The following are some images of Oki Sato's house in Tokyo (the "Moss house", on the Shibuya river).
It took two weeks to apply the moss on the wallpaper, designed by his artist wife.

Nendo has chosen to speak its own language and to express its own culture to send

a universal message.

Photography of Moss House by Daici Ano


You may also like to read:
Fuori Salone" Karim Rashid
Oh, Man, it's a Ray" at "I Saloni"
" I Saloni" Recession Style
"Fuori Salone" Britishness
"I Saloni" (The Satellite Salone)
Salone del Mobile 2009, Milano

Continue Reading... Label: Brillante Interiors, Designers, I Saloni, Milan

Italian Holidays

Dear readers,
How many times I have heard "I wish I was in Milan with you"  "I wish I could travel to Milan with you" ?
Now you have an opportunity to make your wish come true.
I am launching a new venture and the first event will be:

Art, Architecture, Interiors

An aesthetic experience, an intimate tour of Milan

                                

                                Travel in style with Brillante

Please visit my new blog
 http://www.brillantedesigntravel.blogspot.com/

Photography by Albarosa Simonetti

Continue Reading... Label: Brillante Design Travel, Brillante Interiors, Milan, Travel

Art from Coast to Coast

I was reading a great Post on Habitually Chic Blog on Picasso exhibition in New York and since I am passionate about art I could not resist to pass it on. I just wish I was in New York right now.

Buste d'homme by Picasso

On the other hand we are expecting the opening of "The golden age of Dutch art" at the Vancouver Art Gallery this week, and being Vermeer also one of my favourites (I am eclectic even in art) I can't complain.

 A portrait by Aelbert Cuyp

I am reading a book these days very intriguing which I suggest if you are interested in the art world, it definitely gives light to many issues and especially to primary dealers like Gagosian.
I recently met the author of the book in Vancouver after a lecture (we had a full day of art events put together by the Canadian Art Foundation and the Contemporary Art Society of Vancouver to which I belong, it was a day of bliss...).
She is a vibrant, smart, knowledgeable lady and it was a pleasure talking to her and reading her book:
"Seven days in the art world" by Sarah Thornton

Continue Reading... Label: Antiques and Art, Brillante Interiors

The End

"I Saloni" and "Fuori Salone" and the events and the parties and the gossips and the excitement and the high energy in the air... and... and... and...are over.
We'll see the results of I Saloni for months to come on every interior design magazine and the new products will be soon on display in showrooms and catalogues around the world.
Creativity will continue to flow...prototypes will be put in production and new ideas will flourish.

Milan International Furniture Fair 2009 is over.

Arrivederci to Milan International Furniture Fair 2010.

Continue Reading... Label: Brillante Interiors, I Saloni