La convalescente

Arturo Martini, per lire 10 1932 Genova - acquisto

Martini, Arturo

GAM 697

Unità di misura: cm; Altezza: 93; Larghezza: 60; Profondità: 132

Terra refrattaria

The overall layout of the work owes much to Medardo Rosso's "Sick Man in the Hospital", which was exhibited in the retrospective exhibition at the 1st Quadriennale in Rome in 1931. The idea of capturing an action as it unfolds and the search for plastic unity between the various parts, achieved with an identical sculptural treatment, is much more evident in the refractory earthenware sketch made by Martini in 1932, where the wide folds of the girl's dress, caught in the act of standing up, blend in with those of the armchair (Fergonzi 1989, p. 927). While in the sketch the artist concentrates mainly on the 'monumental' possibilities of terracotta, in the final work, of which there is a version in refractory terracotta (Genoa, Galleria d'Arte Moderna), he seems to want to test the pictorial potential of stone, as the three different levels of finish in the side of the armchair, in the flesh of the arm and in the folds of the fabric clearly show (Vianello, Stringa, Gian Ferrari 1988, p. 217). The simplification of the sculpture's general conception, perhaps also due to the greater difficulty of working with the material chosen for the final realisation, corresponds to a greater attention for the descriptive and pathetic details, duly noted by critics when the work was first exhibited in Martini's solo show in February 1933 at the Galleria Milano (Bucci 1933). The sculpture depicts a young woman abandoned in a rocking chair, her arms resting on the armrest and an open book. The artist was inspired by the face of his daughter Maria, known as "Nena", transfigured and absorbed in a timeless atmosphere, archaic and distant and, for this very reason, of universal and deep human intensity.