The Garda Swan
The image of the Riflessi del Garda Festival is represented by its strongly identifiable pictogram, the Garda Swan, as the bird’s beauty and elegance dominates the lake area and encapsulating the soul of the event with immediacy and simplicity.
The logo is characterised by the colour emerald, recalling the shades of the gentle waters of Lake Garda, a shade that evokes growth and youth, inspiring serenity in the soul, harmony and spiritual rebirth.
One of the oldest symbols in human history, the swan, from the Latin ‘Cygnus’, represents perfection, purity, generosity, nobility and wisdom. The Greeks considered the swan the bird of Apollo, patron of poets and musicians, often associated with light, the sun and the arts, as it was believed to sing a song of otherworldly beauty before dying.
Linked to the mystical and feminine world, the swan expresses tender love, a supernatural aspect of divinity, ideal union sought by celestial beings, but also inhaling and exhaling, breath and spirit.
For decadent and symbolist poets such as Gabriele D’Annunzio, the animal takes on a little of all these symbologies and is often placed in a fairytale context, together with other figures that make up the repertoire of early 20th century Art Nouveau poetry.
A symbol to philosophically remind us today and always: Beauty vanishes in life.
In art it does not.