These are wonderful! The top one is just beautiful.
The man and his sons is fascinating in that it captures the relaxed positions of the body in such different ways. Especially that child asleep on the floor at the right. He will wake with a very sore neck, I think. The position of the man's hands is almost a feminine pose - hands to the mouth like that. Almost as if he's wondering what to do with this lot.
It's a nice sculpture, done at a time when raising children was women's work. It feels very domestic.
And the wife - that is more like the statues we see everywhere with little cherubin children. How many children did they have and were they all boys?
Ugolino's wife and children - at first I counted 4. Now I see 7! How many are in that sculpture I wonder?
Jean Baptiste Carpeaux was an incredibly gifted sculptor. Thanks, Christy. I've written his name down as one to look for in France and elsewhere. And I'm learning to use my camera. I hope. It has an *inside* museums and art galleries setting so wherever I'm allowed to use it, I will.
Ugolino dell Gheradesca, whose story is told in Canto 33 of Dante's Inferno, was an Italian nobleman in the Guelph party who was made podesta of Pisa in 1284. In a conspiracy contrived by the Ghibelline Archbishop Ruggeri, Ugolino was accused of having betrayed his town by being negligent in battle. The Archbishop condemned him for his treasonous activities and had him locked up in a tower with his sons and grandsons. The entire male line, therefore, was left to starve to death. Dante tells the story of how Ugolino's children, bearing the unjust condemnation that was their fate offered to sacrifice their bodies to keep their father alive.
http://www.studiolo.org/MMA-Ugolino/Ugolino.htm
There are some great pics of that statue there, detail pics.
It is an amazing work, and you are right, it is like the more you look at it the more people you see in it.
Christy, thank you for this story of Ugolino and his family. That is tragedy and treachery in a bundle. And that's what we find in every stage of human history. And happily it is told through art and literature, music and dance and all other evolving and recording media.
The cruelty of mankind just takes my breath away.
Those detailed parts of the work are *awesome*. Is that child, that perfect child, asleep or dead? The children trying to protect and comfort the elder. Impossible. Far more than a simple historical notation - this reveals layer upon layer of emotion, vulnerability and disempowerment.
His wife
Ugolino and his sons
5 comments:
These are wonderful! The top one is just beautiful.
The man and his sons is fascinating in that it captures the relaxed positions of the body in such different ways. Especially that child asleep on the floor at the right. He will wake with a very sore neck, I think. The position of the man's hands is almost a feminine pose - hands to the mouth like that. Almost as if he's wondering what to do with this lot.
It's a nice sculpture, done at a time when raising children was women's work. It feels very domestic.
And the wife - that is more like the statues we see everywhere with little cherubin children. How many children did they have and were they all boys?
Ugolino's wife and children - at first I counted 4. Now I see 7! How many are in that sculpture I wonder?
Jean Baptiste Carpeaux was an incredibly gifted sculptor. Thanks, Christy. I've written his name down as one to look for in France and elsewhere. And I'm learning to use my camera. I hope. It has an *inside* museums and art galleries setting so wherever I'm allowed to use it, I will.
Check this out
Ugolino dell Gheradesca, whose story is told in Canto 33 of Dante's Inferno, was an Italian nobleman in the Guelph party who was made podesta of Pisa in 1284. In a conspiracy contrived by the Ghibelline Archbishop Ruggeri, Ugolino was accused of having betrayed his town by being negligent in battle. The Archbishop condemned him for his treasonous activities and had him locked up in a tower with his sons and grandsons. The entire male line, therefore, was left to starve to death. Dante tells the story of how Ugolino's children, bearing the unjust condemnation that was their fate offered to sacrifice their bodies to keep their father alive.
http://www.studiolo.org/MMA-Ugolino/Ugolino.htm
There are some great pics of that statue there, detail pics.
It is an amazing work, and you are right, it is like the more you look at it the more people you see in it.
That bust of his wife, man, again, it looks so real you expect her to speak.
She is a real standout, even amongst so many great works.
Christy, thank you for this story of Ugolino and his family. That is tragedy and treachery in a bundle. And that's what we find in every stage of human history. And happily it is told through art and literature, music and dance and all other evolving and recording media.
The cruelty of mankind just takes my breath away.
Those detailed parts of the work are *awesome*. Is that child, that perfect child, asleep or dead? The children trying to protect and comfort the elder. Impossible. Far more than a simple historical notation - this reveals layer upon layer of emotion, vulnerability and disempowerment.
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