Drappellone for the August Palio 2024 by Riccardo Guasco presented

The Drappellone for the Palio of August 16, 2024, dedicated to the Madonna dell’Assunta and made by Riccardo Guasco, known as Rik, was presented on Saturday, August 10, at 7:00 pm in the Cortile del Podestà of the Palazzo Comunale of Siena.

After the sounding of the bugles and the introduction of the mayor of Siena Nicoletta Fabio, it was Ale Giorgini, illustrator and manager of the artist, who presented the work. Then it was the turn of the artist himself, Riccardo Guasco.

The Drappellone plays with chromatic contrasts. The yellow and ochre of the tufo, the colors of the sky, buildings, and flags that fly in Siena during the days of the Palio. We also clearly recognize the cubist style of the artist. Straight lines that start around the Madonna and then go down towards the Piazza. We clearly recognize the town hall of Siena, as well as horses and the semi-circular Piazza.

In addition to the horses, the main protagonists are the barberi, the characteristic balls with the colours of the Contrade, with which the children of Siena play in the streets. We see the same balls at the top, although there they represent the sun, moon and planets around the head of the Madonna.

“The energy, the vitality, the imagination – according to Nicoletta Fabio, mayor of Siena in a commentary on the Drappellone for the Palio di Siena on 16 August 2024 –, the children who meet in their own contrada to play with the barberi. This is what I can see from Guasco’s work. The Madonna who watches over the city with a more earthly part and a more heavenly, astral part. The vault of heaven depicted above the head of the Madonna seems to be part of a sphere made up of planets and constellations that determine the fate of the earthly world. These planets reminded me of the light images of ‘The Little Prince’. Even Rik’s planets represent, in a sense, within a small cosmos, men, with strengths and weaknesses, just like in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s story.

The game must always remain central – added Mayor Nicoletta Fabio – but it is essential to always respect your roles: the Festival needs fixed points and authority in its evolution. Each of us has the task and duty to preserve something unique, according to our own capacities and skills, never exceeding the limits.”

“I am very honoured – explained illustrator and designer Ale Giorgini – and I am sincerely very excited to have the task of presenting the Drappellone, created by Riccardo Guasco. I believe that this work represents his approach to art and his own vision of life: it is the celebration of joy, fun, harmony and colour. It is an image of celebration, because the Palio, to quote Professor Duccio Balestracci, is an Italian festival.

In the Drappellone for the Palio di Siena on August 16, 2024, designed by Riccardo Guasco, the tones of holiness meet popular tones, in a relationship that connects divine and earthly, in a dance of colors that recall the chromatic contrasts between heaven and earth, yellow and the ochre of the tuff, the brilliant colors of the flags of the districts and the kaleidoscopic costumes of drummers and standard bearers. In the upper part of the work, the Assumption of the Virgin: the face of Mary, crowned by the sun, is at the center of the celestial vault in which the planets of the solar system are gathered. The Virgin’s robe becomes the cone of light that illuminates the city of Siena, in what seems to be a divine blessing. The construction of diagonal lines and shapes guides the gaze from the sacred to the earthly dimension: the blessed light illuminates the Torre del Mangia and the adjacent buildings, until it touches the ground of Piazza del Campo with its classical shape.

At the centre are the horses, the great protagonists of the career: rigorous figures in their stately character, but at the same time fluid in their movements, almost broken in the dynamism of Riccardo’s drawing style. The equestrian figures seem to interrupt for a moment the balance of lines, shapes and light, which emphasises the explosive physicality and impulse of the race, in what seems to be the climax of the race and which represents the competitive spirit of the race. In the lower part of the work, the iconic barberi decorated with the colours of the neighbourhoods around Piazza del Campo rotate, creating a kind of visual echo with the upper part of the Drappellone, in what becomes an simile that relates the Palio to the celestial system, as elements that are both subject to cycles and related by recurring structural and symbolic features”.

“Working on this Drappellone – said the artist Riccardo Guasco – was a great honour, a truly unique opportunity and a journey of months that led me to get to know Siena and its Palio like I had never done before. I let myself be guided by the city and its traditions and what immediately struck me most was the richness and variety of colours that during the Palio transform the entire city into a great party.”