La buona terra

From the Getty Museum record

For this series, The Good Earth, Giacomelli followed a farming family off and on over several years as they went about their daily lives in the countryside surrounding Senigallia, planting and harvesting crops and tending livestock. Once he had gained their trust, he began to make photographs that underscored the cyclical nature of their existence, including both the intermingling of multiple generations and the interweaving of daily chores and responsibilities with moments of leisure and renewal. The Good Earth tells a story of resilience, self-sufficiency, and continuity. The last of these is symbolized by the recurring motif of towering haystacks that serve as the backdrop for work, play, and the celebration of a young couple’s wedding. See other examples of works from the series ([2016.179.4](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297414/), [2016.179.6.1](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297435/), [2016.179.6.2](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297436/), [2016.179.6.4](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297438/), [2016.179.6.8](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297442/), [2016.179.6.15](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297449/), [2016.179.49](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297504/), [2021.3.1](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/350490/), [2021.3.2](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/350493/)). Periodically Giacomelli asked the family, with whom he maintained a friendship beyond this project, to use their tractor to plow patterns in fields that lay fallow. The resulting images, which form the basis of his series Awareness of Nature ([2016.179.5.2](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297417), [2016.179.5.3](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297418/), [2016.179.5.7](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297422/), [2016.179.11](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297458/), [2016.179.5.14](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297429/), [2016.179.5.15](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297430/), [2016.179.5.16](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297431/), [2016.179.5.17](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297432/), [2016.179.34](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297483/), [2016.179.36](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297485/), [2016.179.52](http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/297509/), 2020.58), address the issue of humankind’s interventions in the landscape. Virginia Heckert, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs 2021