DOI issue:
No. 217 (April, 1911)
DOI article:Macfarlane, Cecil: An italian sculptor: Leonardo Bistolfi
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20972#0207
Leonardo Bistoifi
"trio" (turin) by leonardo bistolfi
work in which Bistolfi's early power of imper-
sonating abstract qualities and his later and
maturer sense of form blend most happily. It
possesses the strong individuality and exquisite
poetry of his previous works together with
greater emphasis and decision. A virginal form
emerges from a mass of amorphous rock, and
the body, half detached, and half held in the
stone, surges outward towards the sun, radiant
with purity and light. (See illustration in The
Studio, vol. xxxviii, 149.) It is the clearest
and most eloquent allegory of the Beauty of the
Mountains which Segantini loved and praised so
much in all its moods, and the most adequate
monument to that pantheistic sentiment of
nature, pure worship of Alpine beauty and radi-
ance of vision which are the ideal characteristics
of Segantini's painting.
Of the same lofty idealism is his second
monument to Garibaldi. Many years previously
Bistoifi had competed with other sculptors for the
honour of being chosen to erect a statue to the
memory of this hero, but the judges of that
time had very decided ideas on the subject of
commemorative statues, which the unconven-
tional model sent up by the young Piedmontese
artist shocked. This model, not conceived in
the accepted form of a figure walking or con-
trolling a horse galloping on a cube of granite,
but in material and meaning a complete and
consistent whole from base to summit, was an
innovation displaying an originality which could
not be countenanced at that time, but which
their since greatly modified views have induced
them to consider! The Milanese artists, show-
ing a rare example of unity, caused the rejected
model to be cast in bronze and presented it to
the Museo del Risorgimento.
In the present monument at San Remo,
Bistoifi has aimed at perpetuating something
" le sacrifice": detail of monument to king
victor emanuel in rome by leonardo bistolfi
185
"trio" (turin) by leonardo bistolfi
work in which Bistolfi's early power of imper-
sonating abstract qualities and his later and
maturer sense of form blend most happily. It
possesses the strong individuality and exquisite
poetry of his previous works together with
greater emphasis and decision. A virginal form
emerges from a mass of amorphous rock, and
the body, half detached, and half held in the
stone, surges outward towards the sun, radiant
with purity and light. (See illustration in The
Studio, vol. xxxviii, 149.) It is the clearest
and most eloquent allegory of the Beauty of the
Mountains which Segantini loved and praised so
much in all its moods, and the most adequate
monument to that pantheistic sentiment of
nature, pure worship of Alpine beauty and radi-
ance of vision which are the ideal characteristics
of Segantini's painting.
Of the same lofty idealism is his second
monument to Garibaldi. Many years previously
Bistoifi had competed with other sculptors for the
honour of being chosen to erect a statue to the
memory of this hero, but the judges of that
time had very decided ideas on the subject of
commemorative statues, which the unconven-
tional model sent up by the young Piedmontese
artist shocked. This model, not conceived in
the accepted form of a figure walking or con-
trolling a horse galloping on a cube of granite,
but in material and meaning a complete and
consistent whole from base to summit, was an
innovation displaying an originality which could
not be countenanced at that time, but which
their since greatly modified views have induced
them to consider! The Milanese artists, show-
ing a rare example of unity, caused the rejected
model to be cast in bronze and presented it to
the Museo del Risorgimento.
In the present monument at San Remo,
Bistoifi has aimed at perpetuating something
" le sacrifice": detail of monument to king
victor emanuel in rome by leonardo bistolfi
185