Juliet's House embraces Quinn's graffiti
British artist donates work to the city
09 February, 17:30
(ANSA) - Verona, February 9 - The northern city of Verona, home to literature's most famous lovers, this week took another step towards embracing the tradition of young couples scrawling their names on the walls of Juliet's House.
After Mayor Flavio Tosi finally gave up a fight to ban the amorous graffiti last summer, British artist Marc Quinn on Monday donated a work to the city that immortalises the scribbling of several hundred visitors to its most romantic palazzo.
Each year hundreds of thousands of couples pledge eternal love in felt tip pen or leave notes and post-its stuck to the walls with chewing gum under the famous balcony from which William Shakespeare's heroine is thought to have summoned her Romeo.
Quinn was so inspired by the graffiti that, during an exhibition of his work at the House last year, he set up several enormous blank canvases in the entrance to the palazzo.
Lovesick visitors soon covered them with romantic notes and intertwined hearts.
Quinn removed the canvases and selected the most visually interesting sections of densely packed graffiti to create a series of Love Paintings, one of which he has now donated to the House.
''What I find so interesting about the graffiti in the entrance of the house is that it has an amazing emotional purity and aspiration,'' said Quinn, a leading Young British Artist best known for sculpting his own head using five litres of his frozen blood and installing a marble statue of heavily pregnant disabled artist Alison Lapper in London's Trafalgar Square.
''Normal graffiti is scatological and negative or transgressive, whereas this is graffiti of dreams and aspirations that shows us something about the human heart,'' he added.
The remaining works in Quinn's Love Painting series - bearing a price tag of around 300,000 euros - will be displayed in museums worldwide, taking the Verona lovers' pledges global.
CLEAN-UP EFFORT FAILED.
Juliet's House reopened in 2008 after being scrubbed free of messages and gum left by visitors to the star-crossed lover's shrine.
Officials were forced into the clean-up after a failed attempt to bring the site into the modern communications age.
A strict graffiti ban was issued and visitors were urged to send their vows by e-mail and SMS to a huge computer display in the house's lobby.
To officials' dismay, the youngsters who flock to the site opted to stick to their felt markers and gum.
Last July, after Quinn was inspired to create his Love Paintings, Tosi decided the graffiti could stay, saying it ''might not be art, but Juliet's graffiti are part of tradition, like throwing coins in the Trevi fountain''.
Verona makes much of the House - and the revenue it draws - despite historians' claims there is scant evidence it is the locale immortalised by the Bard.
The residence is believed to have once housed Juliet because it was the family home of the Cappello family, who, according to legend, were the Capulets of Shakespeare's play.
Experts believe the real Juliet Capulet (Cappello) would have lived in the house in the 12th century, if she really existed.
Apart from leaving love messages, there is also a ritual linked to the bronze statue of Juliet which stands in the courtyard.
Visitors to the house often caress the right breast of the statue as it's believed to bring good luck.
Last year the council began a scheme to woo couples into tying the knot on the balcony in a bid to make the city a rival to the world's other popular wedding spots with former AC Milan defender Luca Ceccarelli and his girlfriend the first couple to exchange vows.
Photo: Marc Quinn, Love Painting ''tutto e niente'', 2009
