THE ANATOMY OF THE CREATIVE GESTURE

Let me reveal a secret: Jacopo Benassi stepped out of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, the artist known as “Bosco” for the place he came from. I saw him—Benassi, I mean—many years ago inside that painting kept in Lisbon. Now he’s no longer there, neither in the original nor in its photographic documentation. He emerged, carrying with him, clinging to his rags, a host of monsters, madmen, cripples, deformities, and carnival freaks, all ready for a new Barnum circus—a court of miracles that chants to us in an endless refrain, “You’re one of us! You’re one of us!” every time we cross their path, terrifying us and making us flee in panic. We run because they’re not wrong, and we know it; we see it most clearly when Jacopo photographs us. His camera is magical, and it’s magical because it’s equipped with a lens he brought with him from that painting in Lisbon. It’s a magical lens because it tears through the veil and captures the reality beyond the mirage, reminding us that we, too, stepped out of that very same painting by Bosch.