The Long Road from Renaissance Florence to Charlotte

As artist Ben Long climbs the scaffolding this summer to begin work on a ceiling fresco for the lobby of the nearly-completed Transamercia Building, a parallel between 20th century Charlotte and 15th century Florence begins to emerge.

The great wealth generated by the banking and trade center of Florence brought about a golden age of fresco art druing the Italian Renaissance. The Medici and Tornabuoni families endowed private chapels, a privilege previously reserved for monarchs and the church hierarchy. Spectacular secular frescoes by such masters as Ghirlandaio, Giotto, Masaccio and Michelangelo were also commissioned to decorate their palaces.
No other art form is as capable of making a statement with as much rhetorical power as a fresco. And no other art form is as demanding in requiring exceptional drawing skill, a hand that is resolute, quick and sure in painting on damp plaster, and critical judgment in working with hues that alter as the lime plaster dries.

The Transamerica commission will be the fourth Charlotte fresco for Long. The North Carolina native, now living in France, learned the challenging medium in Florence under Pietro Annigoni. The project continues a recent trend initiated with the installation of Jean Tinguel’s kinetic sculpture Cascade in the Carillon Building, of uptown Charlotte companies commissioning signature artworks in the public spaces of their corporate buildings. Combined with the 1% public art funding project and private resources, art is transforming a previously sterile Charlotte urban landscape.
In conjunction with Long’s work on his first-ever ceiling fresco, the Mint Museum of Art will present The North Carolina Frescoes of Ben Long, June 14 through August 24. Featured are preliminary drawings, finished sketches and cartoons, the life-sized drawings used in outlining the fresco wall prior to the application of intonaco, or final layer of lime and sand plaster, and paint.

Early North Carolina frescoes by Long include Mary, Great with Child (1974) and John the Baptist (1975) at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Beaver Creek and The Last Supper (1980) at nearby Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Glendale Springs, works that transformed these small mountain communities into tourist attractions.
Long’s first uptown Charlotte fresco depicted The Agony in the Garden, The Ascension and The Pentecost for St. Peter’s Catholic Church. Its success led to his first secular commission in 1992 – a daunting challenge to create a triptych for the 60-story NationsBank Corporate Center designed by world-renown architect Cesar Pelli to face Charlotte’s historic Tryon and Trade Street Square. Introducing a new element of surrealism to his figurative work, Long’s theme, based on the Japanese Shingon philosophy of body, speech and mind, proved a masterful compliment to Pelli’s architectural design.

Ben Long returned to the classic painting style and Tuscan tones for a 1996 fresco paying homage to the men and women of the Charlotte Police Department at its new headquarters. It is the one Charlotte fresco that provides viewers the opportunity for eye level contact, experiencing the full power and magnificence of the art form.

The North Carolina Frescoes of Ben Long showcases his exceptional drawing skills, provides an up-close view of the fresco process and will doubtless inspire tours of the finished works throughout downtown Charlotte and the North Carolina mountain town of Glendale Springs. More important, art enthusiasts can hope the banking and trading center parallel between Renaissance Florence and New South Charlotte may inspire North Carolina’s own golden age for the arts.