Percorsi digitali per le immagini del fondo Supino: tra tutela, didattica e critica d’arte

Abstract

Supino’s extraordinary legacy, presented as a collection of documents in 1952 by the Critic’s heirs to the Istituto di Storia dell’Arte of Bologna University, contains his photographic collection composed of approximately 8.200 images: those photos were necessary tools which Supino chose during the whole of his life according to his personal studies.
Thus, in the Critic’s education, photography is a subject matter and becomes an important source of increasing knowledge, developing different ways of art criticism and preserving artistic heritage.
The strategic importance of creating a photographic collection, in the heart of what is called today Department of Arts, has allowed the transmission of the abovementioned characteristics of Supino’s experience: art criticism, preservation of artistic heritage, and education. Thanks to the generosity of his heirs, new generations of scholars can follow Supino’s methodology.
The collection has regularly been organized to allow consultation: in 2005, within the project for the evaluation of the Department photographic asset, a campaign aiming at the digital filing of images was started according to the standard criteria of ICCD but never came to an end due to the lack of funds. However, this project must necessarily be accomplished, both by completing the filing and by identifying present objectives, that is the creation of digital paths for our research which must be accessible to all users, so that, Supino’s experience of knowledge can be celebrated through the new methodology of digital fruition.
The contextualizing aspect in the study of artworks within a vast heritage has, however, revealed to be a distinctive feature of Supino’s methodology. We need to proceed in the same direction and, through the contextualization of his study images, offer cross-paths to interdisciplinary dialogue suitable to provide an effective answer to the educational vocation of Supino’s photos with the aid of the numerous possibilities offered by new technology.