Leonardo Bistolfi
SIMBOLISTA VISIONARIO

Description

The volume documents the exhibition dedicated to Leonardo Bistolfi (Casale Monferrato, 1859 – La Loggia, 1933), among the most significant exponents of Italian and European Symbolism. “Leonardo Bistolfi. Simbolista visionario” intends to present itself as a reconnaissance into the visionary universe of the Piedmontese sculptor. Trained first at the Brera Academy in Milan and then at the Albertina in Turin, after a realist and scapigliata-inspired debut, Bistolfi opened up to the literary symbolism of Franco-Flemish origin and to the demands of European decadentism. The artist identified himself above all with the concept of “worker of Beauty”, following an ideological and spiritual line which was essentially that traced by John Ruskin and William Morris. The exhibition, organized by Silva Gallery in Milan, focuses in particular on his symbolist period in an ideal path that goes from a plaster version of the Alpe’s head to the Monument to Giovanni Segantini in Saint-Moritz (“La Bellezza liberata dalla Materia” 1899-1906), probably the most iconic sculpture of the entire Bistolfi production, up to the marble “La Volontà” or “L’Industria” (circa 1925), coming from the historical collection of an illustrious figure, linked to Bistolfi by an ancient bond of friendship, which has never emerged from it until today.