Enrico Fraschetti

About artist

Enrico Fraschetti was born in Rome in 1928 and currently lives and works in the province of Novara.
Self-taught, his artistic activity began after his retirement, around the end of 1995. He focused his attention on mosaic art, in particular on the Opus Sectile. He then deepened his knowledge of the Cosmati Masters and, fascinated by them, he studied and learned their technique. He thus created numerous works that he exhibited in personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad, and in 2007 he was awarded the Diploma of Merit at the Gran Premio Raffaello Sanzio by the Accademia del Marzocco in Florence.
Among his numerous exhibitions, we would like to mention the most recent of them, in 2019 his solo exhibition in Arona, entitled "Quadri in tarsia con pietre naturali". Works made with the particular and ancient technique in vogue until the end of 300 A.D. called Opus Sectile, abandoned after the elimination of slavery, but renamed and resumed by Enrico Fraschetti with the name of Opus Nova.
Images created using polychrome stone, mainly granite carved and recomposed according to precise designs. In Fraschetti's case, his paintings mostly reproduce those of famous painters such as Vincent van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Klimt, Modigliani, Hayez and even Leonardo Da Vinci in order to demonstrate how the marbling technique can be used once again to allow contemporary creatives to express themselves in a valid and eternal way through the colours, structure and veining of natural stone without having to use brushes.
Increasingly fascinated by the modus operandi of the Cosmati, he decided to breathe new life into the Opus Sectile in small dimensions: first in geometric table tops, then by creating mirror frames to hang on walls and finally by trying his hand at figurative drawings. Unlike the Roman craftsmen engaged in the 12th and 13th centuries in marble works of a predominantly sculptural-decorative and architectural character, Enrico Fraschetti opted instead to reproduce famous canvases for the most part with the aim of ascertaining and emphasising the pictorial purpose of the stone used for this purpose.
Opus Nova is the name by which his style is known - also known as multicoloured granite marquetry or multicoloured stone commesso - and to revive this technique in the present day he has invented and built the necessary tools, using the qualification of Field Enggineer obtained in the United States.
Enrico Fraschetti's aim is to highlight how stone (granite, marble, travertine, onyx, quartzite, etc.), if skilfully worked, can provide excellent colour contrasts, shades and deep backgrounds to give lightness, luminosity and movement to the work. He wants to pay a humble homage to the great artists and eternalize them thanks to granite, <<granite which - by its nature - offers true eternity (...) because stone, as such, is eternal! And therefore can be placed in any environment without any special precautions. To copy some important Masters of the past is to give them true immortality>>.