Burden of Wings

Iconic cemetery images captured on Polaroid juxtapose the inherent contradictions of the immediate moment: instant and everlasting. In homage to the 16th century Dutch still life style of Nature Morte, the stone of mortuary sculptures softens like flesh and graveside tokens and bouquets of colorful flowers depict life becoming death. A weathered stuffed animal across a grave, little polished stones, toy soldiers frozen in action, rosaries, porcelain angels, plastic flowers, roses; touches of grief in bas relief. Text and Photographs by Mauro Marinelli. Pre-Publication Comments by Sean Kernan. Available for purchase at amazon.com.

Burden of Wings is a book of photographs focusing on cemeteries, with a concluding essay on the subject of death by the photographer and author, Mauro Marinelli. This is a lovely and melancholy book, poignant and contemplative. Mauro Marinelli is a Renaissance person: an artist, a photographer with credits in Newsday and The New York Times, a cook, a one-time novitiate, a farmer of organic culinary herbs farm, and the owner of a successful contracting business.

Photographer Mauro Marinelli turned to polaroids to capture the cemeteries through which he found himself wandering. The nature of polaroids lends itself to glimpses rather than views, to details rather than landscapes of grief. Marinelli liked how the film softened edges and shadows, giving the grave sculptures a touch of myth.

After Almost 40 Years Alumnus Releases Second Book of Photography Mauro Marinelli ’77 is a dream chaser. Marinelli’s photography book, “Old Timers: The Italians,” was released in 1977, nearly 40 years later, he is now enjoying the success of his book, “Burden of Wings.”

A new art book for the cemetery enthusiast is out, one that captures the true essence of the graveyard as a gateway between the living and the dead, with inspirational shot after shot.

The most unique thing about Mauro Marinelli’s book of cemetery photography is the medium he selected to express himself. Rather than the traditional methods of film or digital photography, Marinelli chose Polaroid. The effect is spectral and poetic.

The Burden of Wings by Mauro Marinelli illuminates the sacred threshold between life and death. Marinelli’s inspiring prose and photographs of stone cemetery statuary are portals to the underworld marking “the final goodbye that doesn’t wink to the future.” Marinelli’s photographs and poetic reflections brought me to the time during my husband’s illness when I took daily walks in an old public cemetery near the hospital. Unfairness and outrage vanished in the presence of thousands of gravestones, many marking the death of children. Every life had a beginning and an end. My husband’s dying and mine were simply part of the natural cycle. Marinelli’s intimate images are never depressing. Luminous wilted flowers and ethereal rays of light stand in contrast to the stillness of stone. Grave site offerings tell poignant stories of our human struggle to accept mortality and honor those we love. We feel the intimate personal love of a mother and the celestial uplift of angel’s wings. We remember to keep silence as we face the Great Mystery. “In the cemetery I’ve come to touch my death,” Marinelli says. “Well, not really touch it; it’s more like … kissing through glass.”

Burden of Wings is an encounter, the kind of unexpected meeting that can change us. As we read it, time stops and we enter a twilight where we witness the longings and partings of so many others that are now past. The photographs have the glowof small il paintings, rendered in the inimitable Polaroid film that seems like a visual language made just for poetry. Wilted flowers drape over a marble hand, a naked granite infant nestles in the snow, stone lips meet in a kiss of full passion. And above it all, an angel hushes the clouds. I knew about these photographs as they came together over the years, and I’m delighted to see their publication, but the surprise for me is the greatness of heart that is in the writing – so quiet, passionate…deep. Poets don’t usually work in two languages. Words and photographs come together to make something greater than both,and I find a wisdom where I wasn’t looking. There is an aching in the work, which becomes a quiet joy, no unhappiness at all.

The soft Polaroid photographs in Mauro Marinelli’s The Burden of Wings invite the reader into the cemetery setting through a ‘side door’. It can be difficult to look death straight on; the touches of sentiment among the grave markers are too intense and remind us of our own mortality. But, death informs us, if we allow it. That seems to be the point of Marinelli’s gorgeous photography and text. The cemetery can be a threshold, a precipice, a juncture of inquiry. What does this have to do with me, the one who is still physically present on the earth? I love this book: the sentiment and photographs are exquisitely paired. The author’s writing is as powerful as the imagery. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve gotten lost in this book.