What is Plato's famous cave, if not already a dark room, the largest, I think, ever created? If he had reduced the opening of his cave to a small hole and covered the wall that served as a screen with a sensitive layer, Plato, developing his background of the cave, would have obtained a gigantic film, and God knows what surprising conclusions he would have left us about the nature of our knowledge and the essence of ideas.

Paul Valéry from "Speech on Photography"

The Eye of the Cave

The Cave of Childhood

Returning to Rome after spending more than twelve years traveling the world, Gianmaria De Luca was compelled to confront his calling as a photographer with his origins—his childhood. The pandemic pushed him into his depths, stirring within him an irresistible need to return to the Circeo Natural Park, about a hundred kilometers from the capital, where he spent every summer as a child. It was there that he would find, on the shores of the Mediterranean, the family vacation home—the source of his fondest memories.

On the side of Monte Circeo facing the sea lies an enigmatic cave, whose magnificent vault evokes the interior of a vast cathedral. De Luca was drawn to it by something that took him a long time to express. There he found himself again. His aunt, a geologist, spoke to him of the "Grotta delle capre" as she helped him revise his science lessons. The name was likely given by shepherds who, until the beginning of the last century, brought their goats there. Archaeological excavations in 1989 revealed the presence of pastoral dwellings nearby. But in antiquity, the cave was called "Grotta della maga," referencing the mysterious energy that reigns there, reminiscent of the myth of Circe.

From 1800, the cave has been the subject of numerous studies by prominent geologists. Stratigraphy has revealed that in ancient times, the sea was present in the cave, which is now 9 meters above the level of the Mediterranean. The most extraordinary testimony of this presence is a splendid fossil furrow, characteristic of shoreline areas, where perforations made by mollusks called "date mussels" are visible.

Today, this history not only alludes to climate issues. It prompts De Luca to trace time back to his own birth. This damp cave is like the womb of a mother who has broken waters. And it is here that the photographer was baptized, nearby, in the small church at the top of Monte Circeo, which resembles an old man sleeping.

In his childhood, De Luca's grandmother read him poems about Circe, awakening his interest in mythology. The powerful sorceress lured the companions of Ulysses into her cave, where she transformed them into animals, before seducing the hero of the Odyssey who was to stay a year by her side in this cavern. Caves have always inspired primal legends in various civilizations. Closer to us, Jesus was said to be born in a cave that housed a stable. His tomb was also a cave.

Last year, the photographer's own daughter, Anahera, was born. A few months after her birth, he decided to create an installation in the "Grotta delle capre," as if to pass the torch to her, inviting the public to discover the process of the "camera obscura" naturally inspired by the shape of the cave.

The Camera Obscura

The "camera obscura" is the process of image perception found in the eye, as in a camera. The inside of the eye is completely dark like the back of a cave. The bright image from outside enters through the iris or the camera lens. It is naturally projected upside down on the inner wall of the retina.

In caves, this physical phenomenon is the origin of art. It led man to make the first cave paintings, modeled on the reflections of the external reality. This process is also found in the famous myth of Plato's Cave. Today, the same phenomenon is used in the cameras integrated into our phones, with the results appearing on Instagram through the billions of images thus produced worldwide.

The entrance to the "Grotta delle capre" is shaped like an eye that looks south. At the back of the cavity, De Luca created complete darkness with black veils that only let light pass through a small lens, like a magnifying glass. The public was invited to enter. One by one, people discovered with amazement the projections of those who had remained at the entrance of the cave. The idea was to involve visitors in the photographer's approach, whose work is a permanent research, a continuous experimentation. At one moment, De Luca placed his daughter Anahera's pram between the eye of the cave and the camera obscura.

The images produced by this experience are projections of reality but through a process that gives it a magical dimension, like the result of an enchantment by the sorceress Circe.

An Eye on True Reality

In the myth of the Cave, Plato uses the phenomenon of the camera obscura as an allegory of our world. According to him, the earthly world is like a dark cave in which men have grown up, chained, unable to know the external reality, that of a perfect universe, the true world. The only image they receive of this outer world is given by the light that, entering through a small hole, is projected onto the back of the cave. It produces an altered and superficial image. If one of these men were to go outside, he would be dazzled by the sunlight he had never seen before. He would have to overcome the pain to acquire the revelation of reality, much more beautiful than what he had known in the cave. Then he would want to return to reveal it to his companions who remained in the cave, as the philosopher reveals the true reality to men. Will they believe him?

The Platonic myth is fascinating, but it can be read in another way. The images projected in the cave, transfigured by the phenomenon of the camera obscura, are of great beauty. For De Luca, they remain more beautiful than reality. And this beauty makes us question: where does it come from? The mystery of this beauty could just as well have fascinated the men of the cave and questioned them about its origin, thus developing their intelligence and vision of the world. Beauty is precisely what does not reproduce reality exactly; it is what restores to this reality the mystery of the universe that surrounds us, giving it a suggestive, spiritual, wonderful dimension. This dimension provokes reflections, questions, feelings. This is the raison d'être of art. The camera obscura is an epiphany, like all true works of art.

To conclude his book "On the Beautiful," the third-century philosopher Plotinus explains that essential beauty is that which has freed itself from much of reality. It is from this beauty that the images of the camera obscura are made. This beauty is the true reality: "Look at the soul of those who create beautiful works. How then can you see the kind of beauty that a beautiful soul possesses? Go back inside yourself and look. Like a sculptor who carves here, scrapes there until he uncovers a beautiful face on his statue, in the same way, even if you do not yet see yourself as beautiful, you must remove the superfluous and straighten what is crooked, purify the obscure. Make them bright and do not stop sculpting your own statue. If you have become that statue and have had a pure relationship with yourself, you will be entirely true light. Having no need of a guide, you will fix your gaze and see. Only such an eye sees true beauty. Such an eye will not see the sun without becoming like the sun, nor will a soul see the beautiful without becoming beautiful. True beauty is there."

Olivier Lexa, curator