Critical theory on Joseph Beuys. "In 1943 the Luftwaffe pilot Joseph Beuys, shot down by Russian anti-aircraft, crashed right into the middle of a snowstorm. The artist was found wounded near the wreckage of his Stuka ''...I remember some voices saying voda (water), then the felt of their tents and the pungent odor of the cheese, the fat and the milk. They covered my body with fat in order to help it regenerate and wrapped it in felt to keep it warm...'' This was the origin of the almost physical relationship that Beuys was to maintain throughout his life with basic elements. Beuys was the first to make use of food: fat, wine, oil, tea, lemon, honey, sugar, spices, chocolate. The author, thanks to first-hand experiences, inserts some unusual and often unpublished photos by Buby Durini, drawing on two historic discussions ''Fondazione per la Rinascita dell''Agricoltura'' (Pescara 1978) and ''Difesa della Nature'' (Bolognano, 1984). She does not intend to catalog Beuys in the ''Eat-Art'' movement and has collected conversations and recipes by the artist-philosopher who was the first to perceive that humanity was condemning itself to suffering the dramatic effects of the ecological crisis. His dream was the symbiotic coexistence between Nature and Man which is still to be realized." -- publisher''s statement. Profusely illustrated in black-and-white. Text in English and Italian.