“The tree of knowledge” the mosaic at the Narvesa school in Pordenone
The mosaic The Tree of Knowledge on the facade of the “Narvesa” primary school in Pordenone was inaugurated on the morning of 10 April 2024. The work, financed by the Municipality of Pordenone, was conceived and created by the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli and marks the conclusion of the recent redevelopment works on the building; in addition to the decorative function, it reiterates the importance of education and knowledge as the basis of progress.
In the presence of all the students of the school, the mayor of Pordenone Alessandro Ciriani, the vice mayor and councilor for education Alberto Parigi, the director of the Istituto Comprensivo Pordenone Torre Vladimiro Giacomello, the president of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, Stefano Lovison, and the director Gian Piero Brovedani.
The Municipality of Pordenone, as underlined by Mayor Ciriani, has invested in the adaptation and structural modernization of school buildings and in this school it wanted to leave a sign of beauty which is given by an art, such as that of mosaic, linked to history and to the tradition of western Friuli. A commitment on the part of the Municipality of Pordenone, towards the safety and quality of the buildings that welcome students and teachers, also reiterated by the councilor Parigi, to which for Narvesa was added the contribution and artistic experience of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli , an international point of reference for mosaics. This is demonstrated by the same students of the specialization course who executed the mosaic The Tree of Knowledge: the French Pauline Debuchy, the Korean Jihyeon Lee, the Russian Vsevolod Prokhorov and the Italians Dalila Loiacono and Alessia Lovato, with the supervision and the coordination of the mosaic master Cristina De Leoni.
The design idea of the work comes from the master Stefano Jus, teacher and educational coordinator of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, who created a composition that would develop over the entire available surface, a large wall at the side of the entrance, without completely covering it and without proposing a single descriptive scene. Moments, objects and situations of school life were therefore represented in boxes or triangles of different sizes. These were then arranged to design a stylized tree which expands from its roots with its branches over the entire portion of the facade. It is a metaphor of knowledge, which has its roots in the past and in the experience of those who preceded us and through the passage to the younger generations allows progress to advance. The school itself is one of the places designated for this transfer of knowledge and the images depicted in the mosaic as photograms immediately evoke the activities of study and learning, a reference to what takes place inside the building where the efforts expended on the desks of school are the basis for luxuriant growth like a tree with strong roots.
April 10, 2024
