A “Different” Female Working Life

The History of a “Glance”

from the twenties to the fifties

Between the two world wars

After the second world war

Giovanna , who pursued it for 50 years . In fact , the Gallucci Photo is identified essentially with her , and it is towards her work in particular which we will direct our attention .

The Architecture of a Microcosm

The Gallucci archives ( at least 20,000 negatives preserved ) consist of a complete photographic documentation of the entire population of Mammola ( about 10,800 inhabitants from 1921 to 1951 , fewer than 4,000 today ; geographically the third largest municipality in the province of Reggio Calabria ) over the span of three generations of the recently passed century: Infact , since Nicodemo and Piero were the only photographers in the town from 1927 to 1935 and Rosa G. until the early 50’s and that Rosa carried on whith her work into the 80’s , over this span of time almost all the inhabitants of Mammola , at least once in their lives , had passed in front of the Gallucci lens.

 The exibition could be seen as a photographic “Spoon River” of anonymous people who populated an anonymous town ; a microcosm which takes its shape through the images of the various human personality-categories : the upper class “lady” and the humble country-woman , the parish priest and the emigrant , the notable and the working woman , each one with a private and social story which tells itself through the details crystallized by the click of the camera .

  The perspective angle preferred in the selection of the images , that which corresponds to Rosa G.’s most profoud requirements and which convinced her of the validity of the exibition , is , however , of a socio-antropological documentary type .

  The photographs are seen as testimony of determined social , economic , and cultural conditions ( therein including mental structure and psycological aspects ) , in particular as a document of the relation between the classes , with their irreconciliable separateness and inevitable  interelations , and as a document of the radical transformations of the aforementioned relation over the period in question.

  The persons depicted serve to illuminate , particularly , the characteristics of their own class, and also the connection between the various classes . Through precise parameters , such as clothing , coiffure , footwear , expression , posture , and personal upkeep , the subject photographed reflects the anthropological architecture of a microcosm .

  And – that which probably counts the most in documentary aims – in this microcosm is reflected a reality much vaster and historically significant : that of an agricoltural region of the South during a period of time which saw considerable epochal alterations .

  The photographs of the twenties ( the first part of the fascist period) reflect in an astonishing manner the rigid division of practically closed classes . If a woman has a very well tended to coiffure made lustrous with a special iron and folded with the same iron to produce wavy contours and curls , and if she wears a dress enriched with graceful and frivoluos details – a diagonal band , a cloth rose – that echoe the fashion trends brought to Mammola by magazines and the contact of travellers to the  big cities , she is without a shadow of doubt a “gnura” ( lady , in the aristocratic sense of the world ). If  she wears “nu mbustinu” ( a girdle ) so tight that it hides any feminine form , and if she has a handkerchief  on her head folded in four parts or “nu crambà” (a flat hat made of plain cloth which reaches the shoulders) , she is without a shadow of a doubt a peasant . A person who in front of the camera has a timid, introverted, almost distrustful expression and reflects , at the same time , the consciousness of being the object of an event ( the photograph ) is most certainly a common man; a person standing erect and steady in front of the lens , whith the attitude of one who is aware of being a subject offering a service , a service which is also a small event ( the photograph ) , is a “gnuri” ( a gentleman ) .

  The photographs from the 30’s reflect the breaking down of “castes” , in concomitance with the economic effects of emigration and colonialism . The wife of an emigrant peasant wold often pose with a dress adorned with some type of ornament : fine stiching , a ribbon , pleats , a flower etc ; a person who was able to put aside a sum of money , even if it was small , returning to the country , was able to bring his wife a cut of flower coloured material , which the dressmaker in Mammola woul sew and which afterwards would be worn in front of the photographic lens …

  Notwithstanding this , the class distinctions still remain strong : a girl belonging to the upper middle-class (small landowners with a professional or a priest in the family) could wear her hair  down as much as she liked ; the daughter of a peasant or artisan was obliged to wear her hair up , tied into a “tuppo” ( a bun ) .

  Later the photographs reflect a coming together of the social classes which would become evident in the period between 1955 and 1965 ( not fully developped in this exibition) which where the years of the economic boom , until they tended to become homologous in the subsequent decades (with growing prosperity and comfort , the age of consumerism asserted itself and standardized secondary school began ) , when the well-off and the common woman could  wear dresses which might have been made by the same dressmaker  with the same material and the same pattern – or when they coul buy the same dress of a series from the same shop – and the confident and independent expression or the haircut of the artisan’s son cannot be distinguished from the expression or haircut of the professional’s son.

A “Different” Female Working Life

The exibition has , also , the objective of reconstructing a “different” female working life . The life of a woman , in an age ( the thirties) and in a social fabric ( an agricoltural region in the deep south) in which women workers were dressmakers, weavers ,  peasants and - rarely -  teachers , who undertakes a job traditionally for men . “South of Naples , you are the only woman I serve,” her supplier of photography material told her in 1945.

Rosa Giovanna Gallucci began to work at 16 years of age , in 1936 . During the first shots she experienced a feeling of embarrassment , it was only later that she acquired an awareness of the dignity of her work and the privilege of her original female position.

  From 1936 to the early 50’s Rosa G. was the only photographer in her town and the thickly populated surrounding countryside ; her clientele also extended further to the habitants of neighbouring towns .

  However , like any other woman from the deep south ,  Rosa complied with unwritten rules , ancestral and restrictive , on the comportment of women : for her it was not right – the paternal prohibition was peremptory – to pursue her profession outside the gates of her parents’ house . This rule was never broken , not even after marriage .

  R.G. Gallucci was almost self-taught , having received only a quick indoctrination from her brother Nicodemo – a photographer of great sensitiveness , in particular in the use of light and chiaroscuro – after the death of Piero . She , like her brothers before her , never had a real photography studio at her disposal ; the “sitting room” was a sheltered corner of the garden of her parents’ large house , where she continued to live after marriage and where she still lives now . In 1938 the “studio” was equipped with a background . She never made use of artificial light , her photos are always “en plein air” ; and since natural light is harsh and casts inopportune shadows on faces … the solution adopted was to photograph clients alone and only at certain precise hours of the day , when the light is sufficient to expose the film but the sun , low on the horizon , casts soft shadows that sculpt the faces without disfiguring it . The unfortunate client who arrived at an inadequate time was irremediably sent home or waited patiently until the sun reached the correct point in the sky .

  Another tecnical aspect of relief is the skillful use of touching up negatives , on even the most bureaucratic “I.D. photo” of the humblest client : moles , boils , rings under the eyes , and wrinkles would disappear .

  The camera used  was a large format “Daguerre” 13 x 18 cm , the lens a Rodenstock 200 mm .

  At first the dark room was only equipped with trays for photographic fluids and a shelf for the boxes of film and photographic paper ; at a later time , in 1938 , also with a printing box – before , the exposure of the photographic paper , pressed inside a printing frame , was done with natural light ( Rosa would take the photographic paper out of its paper wrapping and insert it into the printing frame in the dark room , then she would go out into the light and , calculating time with quick movements of the wrist of the hand holding the printing frame , expose the photographic paper ) – and a magnifier for 6 ½ x 9 cm film . Untill 1944 the negatives used were of glass , “I.D. (6,5 x 9) and “postcard” (10 x 15) format . From 42 to 44 ( Italy was divided in two ) photographic plates were irretrievable for the Gallucci studio , which received its plates from Empoli  ( the firm of Parisio Cantini ) , in Tuscany : the Gallucci photo underwent a stoppage . In 1944 , after the Americans landed , a countryman gave Rosa a box of film ( which had been given to him by an American soldier ) made of different material than previously : it was “ flat film” , the first – for the Gallucci studio – celluloid film , which she  substituted from then on for the obsolete glass.

  Rosa G. only used black and white . A colour photo , for her , was a black and white foto on which , whith a brush , by hand , she painted over transparent albumin colours.

 When , in 1980 , photographers , even in remote Mammola ( by then there were two other photographers in the town ) began to use colour photography , Rosa did not follow the new trend : the Gallucci photo is in black and white to the end .

  The documentary use , and therefore the selection of descriptive and catalogued photographs  functioning as an anthropological analysis , do not obscure the intrinsic aesthetic value of the images .

  There is undoubtedly , in these photographs , the construction of a photographic “play” , with her technique and her rhetorical conventions .

  The natural lighting is diffused but not diaphanous ; it often enhances chiaroscuro , and , in general , the  plein air effect is plastic .

  The people come to be placed into a compositive scheme . There are at least ten schemes that repeat  themselves and reproduce human archetypes – maternity , childlike innocence , purity , femininity , masculinity , the family …, - : a mother seated with her baby in her arms , a pose from medeival sculpture , a child with flowers in her hand , the “little virgin” (a child wearing her first communion gown) with hands clasped , a girl with a newspaper rolled up between her fingers , a youth with a half – smoked  cigarette staring boldly at the camera , husband and wife from the chest up , newlyweds from head to foot …

  Every man , every woman , rich or poor , is seen in his dignity of person and as an idealistic visual object : all of them where advised on how to pose , words were directed towards them which inclined them , for the brief period of the picture , to make not only expressions of embarrassment in front of the camera to disappear , but also sufferance and worries , anxieties and existential dramas .  At times , if a girl or a woman didn’t have a nice dress because she was poor , or was wearing a dress whose colour would turn out too light or dark in a black and white photo , Rosa would lend one of her own ; everybody’s better half was portrayed . A person’s nose may appear straighter or the profile of the cheek more linear or the photo might have been taken from above or below depending on the length of a person’s face … All of the photos were touched up ( therefore signs of ageing like wrinkles were filtered or signs of illness like goiter …) : as if ugliness and shyness , illness and social disadvantage should disappear or be mitigated in Photography , into a kind of kaleidoscopic idealization .

 Frequently , above all during the first decades , the result of the afore-mentioned photographic play is an enchanting fixedness of faces , almost hypnotized in a suspended expression and attitude ( at the moment of the picture , Rosa Giovanna wold speak to her subjects – “Pretend to be sitting at home , the camera doesn’t exist , don’t think about it …” – and meanwile the client’s expression would change ,he would relax and she would take the photo by surprise , capturing the escaping instant of an expression free of thought or the hint of a smile .

  At the same time , the lens tends to capture the soul , to penetrate into the interior (Rosa G. to her subjects : “Just be yourself …”) , beyond rhetorical conventions , or maybe better to say , notwithstanding the respect of rhetorical conventions .

  And , through all the possible filters re-emerge , indelibly , the expressive power of the faces ( and bodies , hands ...) , the most profound and realistic human data .

 

The History of a “Glance”

  The exibition is also , in the context of the profound changes of the images and the imaginary over the course of time , the history of a “glance” , that of the photographer – Rosa G. – with the evolution of the construction of a “photographic play” and her rhetorical conventions ; it is the history of a manner of posing in relation to photography .

  From the initial idealization and “enchantment” of the faces we pass to a progressive realism and unconstraint of the expressions and attitudes ; from fairly rigid constituent schemes to a freer formulation ; from the use of a romantic background to a spartan and almost non-existent background up to the complete absence of a background .

  From the struggle with clients to assert the beauty of chiaroscuro and the normality of the white spot – the reflection of light – on the iris (“You made me half black … You gave me an eye with a white speck …” , some  frankly distrustful clients would say . “But look at this newspaper …” she would insist ) to the freedom to use light with the greatest independence .

  From the use of a beloved dark background to the necessity of using a white background for some bureaucratic uses and then , in later decades, to the change back to a certain hue of grey background . From the modesty of feeling like a photographer to the pride of being one . From the necessity of making a client feel at ease , somebody who was worried about the misterious act about to be produced by the switch connected to the shutter … to the reciprocal ease of the photographer and the  photographed . From the consciousness of achieving a result to the awareness of producing an easily repeatable experience .

  The evolution of the manner of taking photographs is in part the other side of the changes in the manner of being photographed , of offering oneself to the lens , of conceiving photography from the customer’s point of wiew .

  From the  perspective of contemporary man , who consumes in continuance , who takes photos or has photos taken of himself , photographic images that do not have a greater consistence than the bubbles that a child  makes appear and disappear , and who commonly uses the “automatic camera” for bureaucratic use and rarely goes to a photographist , it is truly profound – and is easily discernible over the sixty year period considered in the Gallucci photographs – the transformation of the manner of posing for the camera : in the early decades embraced by our exibition , only the photographer took photographs and a photograph could have been “the” photograph , the only one in a lifetime , which would have been put on a headstone after a few years or many decades.

Rome , 05/08/2000

The curator of the project: Vanda Zavaglia

Translation by Marc Nerenberg