credo
Reflect. Rise. Become.
With the devotion of a Romantic and the precision of a Classicist, Alessandro Principe crafts films and ideas, because he can’t do otherwise. He has tried, to no avail.
His work is an invitation to reflect. In every frame and phrase, he brings back into actuality forgotten virtues such as courtesy, generosity and ethics, instruments of a quiet revolution.
Alessandro believes that the world is not meant to be conquered, but ennobled. His life’s legacy is a rebellion against vulgarity, a testament to the enduring power of beauty.
A love letter to the divine, a polite note of disgust
ART is the highest form of human expression. The ultimate aspiration of the spirit, our grand flirtation with the eternal.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, lurking in the dark, crawls BUSINESS, the lowest embodiment of human instinct. The hideous domain of the measurable and profitable, humanity’s industrious attempt to make life as unpleasant as bearable while calling it “progress”.
Artists are gods
Art does not bargain, nor does it sell. It offers.
It is the one act in which humans becomes godlike, bringing ideas into existence, for the simple joy of creation, for the aching need of expressing what cannot be expressed in any other way.
Skyward into light
While the artist dreams of a better world, the businessman dreams of a bigger market.
Art unites, business divides. It pits man against man in a race for coins, stamping out generosity in favour of efficiency.
If art is the elevator that lifts us skyward into light, business is the grim device that hums downward, into the grey corridors of the underground.
Law may tolerate commerce; good taste should not
Business, while legal, ought not to be mistaken for a noble activity. One does not applaud a man for choosing greed or cowardice, so do not exalt the merchant as if he were a moral figure.
Ever calculating, ever compromising, let trade remain what it is: a vulgar activity, a sewer system confined to the margins of the society.
Profit is the last refuge of the uninspired
When the muse has packed her bags and left no forwarding address, the uninspired, confronted with their own creative barrenness, retreat into the safe, cold logic of profit.
In a last attempt to fill the void left by imagination’s absence, starved of originality and incapable of beauty, the seek compensation in accumulation.
If one cannot be remembered for what one created, one must at least be envied for what one acquired.
It is a hollow kind of triumph. For no amount of profit can replace the quiet joy of making something meaningful, of shaping something that outlasts its maker.
a polite nod and a discreet relocation of the silverware
There will always be those who choose coin over character and ledger over legacy.
So be it. Do not meet them with respect, but with a polite nod and a discreet relocation of the silverware.
Let them dwell among us, if we are feeling charitable. But let us gaze upon them with the gentle disdain we reserve for those who speak too loudly in theatres or describe their stock portfolio at funerals.