Ian KiaerBrueghel Project / Casa Malaparte 1999

This tableau was inspired by the experiences of two men, living centuries apart, in the same mountainous, remote region of Italy. The windmill here is taken from The Procession of Calvary by Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel who travelled to Italy and France in the mid-1500s. The scene of isolation is mirrored by the little balsa wood house positioned precariously on top of the foam on the stool, a reference to the Italian poet Curzio Malaparte’s retreat on a rocky promontory overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea following his exile by Mussolini in 1933.