Arturo Martini

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Arturo Martini (born August 11, 1889 in Treviso , † March 22, 1947 in Milan ) was an Italian sculptor.

Thirst ( La sete ), 1934. Photo by Paolo Monti (Fondo Paolo Monti, BEIC)

Life

Martini: Judith and Holofernes , Kröller-Müller Museum

Martini came from a humble background, his father was a cook, his brothers were painters. He dropped out of school and began an apprenticeship as a craftsman when he was 13 years old. He trained as a goldsmith and ceramist. In 1906 and 1907 he worked in the workshop of the sculptor Antonio Carlini (1859–1945) in Treviso. In 1908 he attended the Scuola libera del nudo , a course offered by the Venice Academy of Art that does not require any school qualifications (hence libera - free) and gives his students the task of shaping according to nature (hence nudo - act). His teacher was Urbano Nono (1849-1925). At the academy, Martini got to know the work of Medardo Rosso , who had completed comparable courses ( corsi di nudo e di plastica ) at the Accademia di Brera in Milan and whose ceramic busts (e.g. Bambino ebreo , Bimbo malato , Ecce puer ) Martini influenced. In 1909 he met the painter Gino Rossi, with whom he remained lifelong friends, and took part with him in exhibitions in the Ca 'Pesaro , a palazzo in Venice that has presented modern art since 1902 (Galleria internazionale d'arte moderna). The following year Martini went to Munich , financially supported by a museum director and an industrialist. There he studied with Adolf von Hildebrand , who suggested the classic “Roman” form, which is expressed, for example, in the Prodigal Son , Martini's masterpiece. In Munich he also became known for the expressionist works of the bridge founded in 1905 . In 1911 Martini moved on to Paris. There he studied Aristide Maillol's sculptures and presented his own work at the Salon d'Automne in 1912, together with Gino Rossi, Giorgio de Chirico and Amedeo Modigliani .

In 1914 Martini took part in the Secessione Romana in Rome (founded in 1911) . In 1916 he served in an artillery regiment stationed in Vittorio Veneto . He was transferred to Vado Ligure and worked there as a foundryman in an armaments factory. In 1920 he exhibited at L'Esposizione dei dissidenti di Ca'Pesaro (an exhibition in the Galleria Geri Boralevi in ​​Venice that departed from the Ca'Pesaro program). At the beginning of 1921 he moved to Vado Ligure, to the house of his wife Brigida Pessano's parents, where he stayed for eight years. In Vado Ligure he received his first public commission, a memorial for the city's fallen. In 1921 he joined the artist group Valori Plastici (values ​​of the figurative), which was named after the art magazine founded by Mario Broglio in Rome in 1918. The group advocated a departure from futurism (which some of its members had founded or promoted themselves) and called for a return to the concrete, to classical rigor. Martini's Busto di fanciulla and Busto di ragazzo , busts of girls and boys, which are reminiscent of works from the early Renaissance , can serve as examples of this return . The Valori Plastici group included a. Carlo Carrà , Giorgio de Chirico and his brother Andrea de Chirico (alias Alberto Savinio ). Their influence extended beyond Italy. So was z. B. also influenced Karl Hofer by her. In 1921 Martini was represented with several works in the exhibition The Young Italy . It was organized by the Nationalgalerie (Berlin) and presented in the Kronprinzenpalais (Berlin) (later in Hanover and Hamburg).

In the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome Martini studied the technique of Etruscan terra-cotta sculptures. Martini took part in the Terza Biennale Romana in 1925 and for the first time a year later in the Biennale di Venezia . In 1926 he joined the Novecento Italiano movement (The Italian 20th Century). During his stay in Rome, he met the American painter and sculptor Maurice Sterne in the artists' village of Anticoli Corrado . He commissioned Martini, who fared badly economically, to design a monument for Worcester (Massachusetts) dedicated to the American pioneers . Martini, who thought he was a dilettante , took on the job for a fee. The monument - Monumento ai pionieri d'America - was completed in 1929.

In 1929 Martini received a teaching position at the Istituto d'Arte (also Liceo Artistico), a teaching institution in the Villa Reale di Monza , the castle in Monza . He stayed there until 1930. The following year he won the First Prize for Sculpture at the Prima Quadriennale di Roma . In the same year he visited the excavation site in Pompeii. The influence of this visit is noticeable in his sculptures of drinking people, because they resemble the plaster casts of those who died when Vesuvius erupted.

In 1932 Martini was granted a separate room at the Venice Biennale. The artist had reached the peak of his career. In 1939 he began to paint. His paintings were exhibited in Milan's Galleria Barbaroux in 1941. In 1942 he was offered a position as a teacher at the Venice Art Academy. Martini remained an artist popular with the regime until the end of fascism. He was appointed to art commissions (1937 to 1939 in Milan) and received public commissions, e. For example, the bronze statue of Minerva (1935) in front of the main building of the Sapienza , the University of Rome, the marble relief Giustizia corporativa (1937) at the Milan Palace of Justice and the marble group I benefattori - gruppo degli Sforza (1939) at the Ospedale Niguarda hospital in Milan (named after a city district). Other colossal portraits that courted fascism are partly lost, partly only in drafts or in fragments, such as the Ercole , a bronze Hercules who embodies fascism and looks as if it were an ancient find.

In 1945, on the rubble left by fascism and feeling abused, Martini published La scultura, lingua morta (Sculpture, a dead language). For example, he writes: “La scultura è un'arte da negri e senza pace” (sculpture is a black art and without peace). Despite the bitterness about his own art, towards the end of his life he created a marble sculpture that is counted among the well-known of his oeuvre, the Palinuro , a homage to the partisan leader Primo Visentin, known as "Masaccio", who lived in Loria shortly before the end of the war ( Veneto) died under unexplained circumstances.

Martini is considered to be the most important, if not the most important sculptor in Italy in the period between the world wars. He worked with many materials (clay, wood, plaster, stone, especially marble, bronze, silver) and never strayed far from his program, the figurative, although he was also able to model abstractly, like his atmosfera di una testa (head mood ) from Testified in 1944. He exerted a great influence on Italian sculptors, e. B. Marino Marini , Emilio Greco , Marcello Mascherini and Pericle Fazzini .

Works (selection)

Terracotta. Photo by Paolo Monti . Galleria Il Milione, Milan, 1963.
Annunciazione . Photo by Paolo Monti. Milan, 1963.
Photo by Paolo Monti. Milan, 1963.
  • La prostituta (also la puttana - the hooker), terracotta, 1909–1913, Galleria d'Arte Moderna Ca'Pesaro, Venice
  • Fanciulla piena d'amore (Girls full of love), majolica , 1913, Ca'Pesaro, Venice
  • Pulzella d'Orleans (Maid of Orleans), bronze, 1920, private
  • Busto di funciulla ( bust of a girl), terracotta, 1921
  • Busto di ragazzo (Bust of a boy), terracotta, 1921
  • Il poeta Cechov (the poet Chekhov ), terracotta, 1921, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (MART), Rovereto
  • Il dormiente (the sleeper), plaster of paris, 1921, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (GNAM), Rome
  • Ofelia (Ophelia, female figure from Hamlet ), plaster of paris (approx. 1.4 m), 1922, private
  • Testa di ragazza (Head of a Girl), bronze, 1923, private
  • Testa di ragazzo (Head of a Boy), bronze, 1923, private
  • I naufraghi (The Shipwrecked), bronze, 1924, Galleria d'Arte Moderna (GAM), Turin
  • Autoritratto (self-portrait), plaster, 1924, private
  • Monumento ai caduti di Vado Ligure (Monument to the Fallen of the City of Vado Ligure), bronze, 1925, Vado Ligure
  • Il bevitore (the drinker), terracotta, 1926, Pinacoteca di Brera , Milan
  • Il figliol prodigo (the prodigal son), bronze (over 2 m), 1926, Collezione Ottolenghi, Acqui Terme
  • Trilogia dei re , consisting of the parts La principessa , San Giorgio e il drago and Lo sposalizio dei principi (princely wedding), majolica and terracotta, 1926/1927
  • La Nena (the artist's daughter), terracotta, 1928, bronze, 1930, private
  • Testa di Madonna (Madonna head), wood, 1928, private
  • La Pisana , stone (approx. 1.5 m), 1929, Collezione Ottolenghi, Acqui Terme
  • Madre folle (mad mother), terracotta, 1929, private
  • La madre (the mother), wood (over 2 m), 1930, GAM, Turin
  • Donna al sole (woman sunbathing), bronze, 1930, MART, Rovereto
  • Adamo ed Eva , Stein, 1931, Museo Civico, Treviso
  • Il sogno (The Dream), terracotta (2 m), 1931, Collezione Ottolenghi, Acqui Terme
  • Tobiolo (Tobias with a fish), bronze (1.25 m), 1934, Collezione Ottolenghi, Acqui Terme
  • Aviatore (Flieger), terracotta, 1931, private
  • La lupa ferita (the injured she-wolf), bronze, 1931, private
  • L'Attesa (the expectation - a naked woman looking out the window, seen from behind), terracotta, 1931, private
  • Torso di un giovane uomo (Torso of a Young Man), terracotta, 1931, Tate Gallery, London
  • Chiaro di luna (Moonlight - two women looking up on a balcony), terracotta, 1932, Middelheim Museum , Antwerp
  • Giuditta ed Oloferne ( Judith and Holofernes ), 1933, Kröller-Müller-Museum, Otterlo
  • La sete (thirst), bronze, 1934, GNAM, Rome
  • Morte di Saffo ( Sappho's death), bronze (approx. 1 m), 1934?
  • Il centometrista (the hundred meter runner ), bronze, 1935, Ca'Pesaro, Venice
  • Minerva , bronze, 1935, in front of the main building of La Sapienza University , Rome
  • Ercole , bronze (2.6 m), 1936
  • Tito Minitti, eroe d'Africa , bronze (over 1.5 m), 1936, GNAM, Rome
  • Bevitore ( drinker ), Stein, 1937, GNAM, Rome
  • Giustizia corporativa (see corporatism ), marble relief, 1937, Palace of Justice, Milan
  • Ritratto di Lorenzo Viani , marble, 1937, Palazzo Municipale, Viareggio
  • I benefattori - gruppo degli Sforza (the benefactors - group of the Sforza ), marble (5 m), 1939, Ospedale Niguarda (Niguarda Hospital), Milan
  • Ritratto di Carlo Scarpa , terracotta, 1941, private
  • Il sogno - monumento a Irina Lukacevich (Monument to the ballerina Irina Lukacevic), marble, 1941
  • Donna che nuota sotto acqua (swimmer under water), marble (1.3 m), 1941/42, private
  • Monumento a Tito Livio ( cf.Titus Livius ), marble, 1942, University of Padua
  • La cavalla che allatta (Breastfeeding Mare), terracotta, 1943, Museo Civico, Vicenza
  • Scomposizione di toro ( Cutting up the bull), bronze, 1944, Collezione Rimoldi, Cortina d'Ampezzo
  • Atmosfera di una testa (head mood), bronze, 1944, Museo del Paesaggio, Verbania
  • Ratto d'Europa (Robbery of Europe), silver, 1946, private
  • Palinuro (cf. Palinurus , in honor of the partisan leader Primo Visentin), marble (2.10 m), 1946, University of Padua
  • Testa di ragazza (Head of a Girl), terracotta, 1947, private

literature

  • 50 Ans d'Art Moderne , exhibition catalog of the Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles 1958 in the Palais International des Beaux-Arts, Brussels 1958
  • Gino Scarpa, Colloqui con Arturo Martini , Rizzoli, Milan 1968
  • Umberto Parricchi (ed.), Un paese immaginario: Anticoli Corrado , Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Rome 1984
  • Exhibition catalog of the Treviso Municipal Museum, Il giovane Arturo Martini, opere dal 1905 al 1921 , De Luca Edizioni d'Arte, Rome 1989
  • Mario De Michell, Claudia Gian Ferrari, Giovanni Comisso (eds.), Le lettere di Arturo Martini , Edizioni Charter, Milan and Florence 1992
  • Arturo Martini, Colloqui sulla scultura 1944-1945 , Treviso, 1997
  • Elena Pontiggia (ed.), Arturo Martini: La scultura lingua morta e altri scritti , Abscondita, Milan 2001

Notes on the net

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Martini himself considers the prodigal son to be an important work, because he writes in his colloqui : Figliol prodigo… e l'argomento più importante della mia vita - the prodigal son is the most important theme of my life
  2. ↑ Martini's Swimmer Under Water was created about two years after Maillol's River , the relationship between the two works is unmistakable
  3. ↑ Source: Claudia Gian Ferrari, Gli anni venti di Arturo Martini and Valori plastici e Novecento: le due facce della medaglia
  4. ↑ http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/arturo-martini_(Dizionario-Biografico)/
  5. ↑ Source: Arturo Martini cattivo ad Anticoli Corrado
  6. ↑ the benefactors - a tribute to the famous Milanese duke family of the Sforza
  7. ↑ an allusion to fascism and its black shirts
  8. ↑ named after the helmsman Palinuro in the 5th song of the Aeneid , who fell into the sea, was able to save himself on land, but was murdered there
  9. ↑ the time span indicates several versions of the same work
  10. ↑ Martini's first public commission: a pyramid and a bronze figure on each side (a shepherd, a soldier and two women, including a pregnant woman)
  11. ↑ refers to the female figure in Ippolito Nievos novel Le confessioni d'un italiano or posthumously Le confessioni di un ottuagenario (in the German translation Pisana or the confessions of an eighty- year-old )
  12. ↑ There is also a version in terracotta
  13. ↑ based on the apocryphal book Tobias , which tells how Tobias and the Archangel Raphael travels to media and is afraid of a fish on the way
  14. ^ Part of the Arturo Martini exhibition . Creature, il sogno della terracotta - press announcement with photo gallery
  15. ↑ 1940 is also mentioned as the date of origin
  16. ↑ a pilot in the Ethiopia campaign who was shot down in 1935 at the age of 26
  17. ↑ There is also a bronze draft, which is also occasionally shown
  18. ↑ Viani (1882–1936) is a painter and writer born in Viareggio
  19. ↑ the plastic, the fallen Terpsichore is
  20. ↑ allegedly a worker at the Ruggero Nicoli studio in Carrara chopped off the marble swimmer's head at the request of Martinis, which gave the impression of being immersed in water, source: Giandomenico Semeraro, L'Uomo di marmo , Meiattini editore, Siena 2000
personal data
SURNAME Martini, Arturo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Treviso
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1947
Place of death Milan