CONTEMPORARY TOKENS OF LOVE

A contemporary token of love: a hand painted T-shirt

THE FIRST ARTISTIC T-SHIRT COMPETITION HAS TAKEN PLACE IN CORCIANO, ITALY

(comments to the winning T-shirts following this article)  

Lovers' cups in the Renaissance were tokens of love, the beloved ones wanted to express all their love to their soulmates with a real piece of ceramics to make their love eternal. With the passing of time we have lost this tradition, although its memory is still alive, which is the idea of something to express your everlasting love with.

Example of a ceramics Renaissance Lovers' cup,
a round
plate with the portrait of the betrothed.

By following this theme an interesting exhibition in Corciano, Perugia (Church-Museum of Saint Francis) was inaugurated on April 21st, 2012 in the occasion of the annual event "Primavera dell'Artigianato" (Arts & Crafts Spring Celebrations), this year for its 20th year.

190 different T-shirt were the subject of this exhibition which was using very original structures and contemporary music in the background, what was stunning for its contrast to the romanesque Church-Museum of Saint Francis. For the opening, visitors also enjoyed a show of young local hip-hop dancers.

The title of the exhibition took inspiration from the famous payoff of the "Baci Perugina", the Perugina chocolate candies called "kisses", which was "Dillo con un bacio" (tr."say it with a kiss", "express your love with a kiss"). These chocolate candies are also considered as small tokens of love.

These T-shirts took part to a competition divided into two sections: "Artists" and "Students" and the public was their voters.

Corciano, Perugia: "Ti Amo! Dillo con una t-shirt - Artigianato per Amore" (tr."I love you! Say it with a t-shirt - Arts & Crafts with love") from April 21st to May 1st, Church-Museum of Saint Francis, Corciano, Perugia, Italy. For those who wish to know more, catalogue of the exhibition available, price is 10 euros.

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                     And the Winners are..."Omnia Vincit Amor" and  "L' Amour Me Se Fame Jamais"

OMNIA VINCIT AMOR
Artists Section

Here is the winning T-shirt in the "Artists section" with the famous latin expression: "OMNIA VINCIT AMOR"  which means "Love conquers everything", the complete aphorism is "OMNIA VINCIT AMOR ET NOS CEDAMUS AMORI" (tr."Love conquers everything and we give up to Love") by Latin poet Virgil (Bucoliche X, 69).

The T-shirt is Signed by AMOR (tr.Love)! 

More about this -shirt will follow in a dedicated post. Subscribe to this blog or become a Friend of Cama on facebook for updating, also available on Twitter.

L' AMOUR ME SE FAME JAMAIS  
Students Section

As a translator by reading the expression "L'amour me se fame jamais" and without looking at the T-shirt, I may say that these students will have to study French a little more, unless what they are writing is a play on words I am not aware of or it is a joke. The correct expression in French is: 

"L' amour ne se fane jamais" which means "Love never fades", in Italian it is usually translated with the expression "L'amore non tramonta mai" ("tramontare" is the romantic verb we use in Italy for something that ends) where the word "tramonto" translates "sunset" and actually the sunset is in the drawing as the starting image, which makes us think of some exotic places, with a camera on its left side and everything printed on a film out of a roller. The unrolling film carries two additional images: in the second image the English expression "I love you" (I + heart + Yo?) and in the third image a young couple hugging, and looking in the camera. 

Going back to the the authors (I notice two signatures on the right lower part that I cannot read competely but may be French names) from an overall look at the T-shirt, I suppose they might be of French origins and probably the expression they wrote is a reminder of their country of origin, which makes this expression extremely sweet and valuable thanks to the errors. Also it is interesting to notice that the concept of the sunset is an important element of the message of eternal love beyond its original expression in French, beyond its original words (how interesting the coincidence with the Italian translation). By looking at the beautiful African-French (?) teenager in the T-shirt I think of Haiti and I think that the sunset might belong to these memories, the only sunset we can think of when true love conquers us and we feel completely defeated by his fine arrows. 

"Let Love conquer you, there is no better defeat in life",  Roberta Niccacci

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about the translation of  "gift of love", "token of love", to me the best definition in Italian is "pegno d'amore".

If you wish to know more about Renaissance tokens of Love visit my first blog: www.bertabella.blogspot.com