The theme of artistic creation runs from the beginning of the book to its end. Sakumat neither chases the muses nor doggedly waits, paintbrush in hand, for them to appear. Instead, he revels in what we might call the negative space of the artist’s craft: He listens to Madurer’s words, observes his everyday world and above all gauges his wishes before commencing to sketch. Nearly half the book passes before his first brushstroke. By this point, Sakumat’s intention is clear. The murals of Madurer’s rooms will be not only for him, but also, in essence, by him. The painter’s brush will move in tandem with the boy’s imagination and, better still, his soul.
Sakumat and Madurer’s collaboration offers more than a parable about making art. It also reveals how we come to inhabit the forms we create. The pair’s discussions about a pirate ship featured in one of the murals lead to endless modifications, from the number of men on board to the effect of the wind on the ship’s movements. Sakumat even adjusts its size, painting it bigger to simulate its approach and bring its details into focus for Madurer’s eyes. Art slowly transforms into narrative as the two comment on the imagery, culminating in Sakumat painting a cabin boy named Madurer sitting astride the bowsprit. Nature may have denied Madurer the chance to sail actual seas, but through his and Sakumat’s artistic partnership other types of flight become possible.
Fables are at their best when they move in and out of reality seamlessly, when their fantastic inventions illuminate the real-life problems we face and their make-believe characters’ masks fall off to reveal the human elements underneath. Italian culture has been blessed with such creations, from the tales of Italo Calvino and the cinema of Federico Fellini to of course Collodi’s marionette turned boy, Pinocchio. In Piumini’s “Glowrushes,” the imagination can only take one so far. No dazzling emanation from Sakumat’s magical brush can rescue Madurer from his tragic fate. However gut-wrenching, this plot turn is part of what makes the book such an aesthetic success. By its end, we have come to love this boy and to savor his friendship with Sakumat — a connection that blurs the line between fairy tale and lived experience.
The glowrushes of the title are conceived by Madurer, who describes them as rare “firefly-plants” that light up the nocturnal fields. One night soon after, Sakumat awakens him and tells him to look at the painted walls: “Bewildered, the boy sat up in bed. All around him in the darkness, hundreds of slender wisps glowed with a golden light. Bending this way and that, they shone throughout the dark meadow and seemed to sway in the wind.”
In the name of his love for a fragile child, Sakumat achieves his mightiest artistic feat, giving his young friend the one gift forever denied to him: nature itself.
