Studio: international art (21.1901)

Studio- Talk

' LA MORT, CONSOLATRICB DES MISERES HUMAINES BY PILADE EERTIERI

(Piedmont) in 1859, his father, a sculptor in Poete; Les Epouses de ia Mori, and La Douleur

wood, dying when his son was still a child. At confortee par les Souvenirs.
a very early age young Bistolfi was sent by the
municipality of his native town to the Academy of

Fine Arts at Milan, and then to that of Turin, the As one can see, the spirit of these representations

town wherein he has ever since resided. Strange is altogether ideal and allegorical, the forms

to say, this poet, this idealist, this would-be solver embodying the artist's ideas, disdaining all thought

of the great problems of existence, started with a of physical individuality in their endeavour to

series of crudely realistic works, which, however, attain a higher, impersonal beauty,
were in no sense vulgar. Herein we have the
explanation of his little terra-cotta group, Les

Blanchisseuses, the realism of which, while shocking There is one side of M. Bistolfi's work which
the bourgeois, also covered the author with demands special notice, and that is his conception
academic reprobation, and excluded him from a of monumental art. He is almost the creator—
certain exhibition. But the sane side of his certainly the most forcible interpreter—of a new
ability, the steady striving after expressive vitality, tendency in monumental sculpture, which in his
soon made itself apparent, without any trace hands assumes an entirely new form. Circum-
of coarseness, in his subsequent works—little stances hitherto have not allowed him to achieve
groups of rustic character, lacking neither in the absolute realisation of his ideas, but the three
humour nor in poetry. An excellent example studies for the monuments of General Garibaldi at
is his Le Bouvier (El Boaro), a fine life-size Milan, the Duke of Aosta at Turin, and the
statue. brothers Cairoli at Pavia, are undoubtedly the
- three most original and complete manifestations of

But these bronzes, full of life and spirit, some- what is st>'led La sculPture de Vidie- Acconv

times poetical, as they are, reveal but a small part PanyinS these notes are reproductions of some

of their author's artistic individuality. One must of the most ]mPortant of M- Bistolfi's fine

go to his large monumental works to obtain an works-
adequate idea of his view of life, his aesthetic

tendencies and the force of his genius. Most of The annual exhibition of the Society of Fine

his mortuary statues and bas-reliefs are to be found Arts brought to the front a young painter for whom

in the lonely cemeteries of small provincial towns, a brilliant future may be predicted. M. Pilade

The titles alone of some of these works suffice to Bertieri, whose remarkable studies were not

indicate the sculptor's idealistic tendencies—for unknown, exhibited a large canvas, La Mori,

example, Le Sphinx; La Beaute et la Mori; Les Consolatrice des Miseres ffumaines, now reproduced,

Esprits de la Jeunesse sur le Tombeau d'un Jeune which reveals gifts of a profound order. Painted

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