Adolfo Wildt

Adolfo Wildt
(Milan, 1868-1931)
1. 8. The ear 1922
Candoglia marble; 25, 5 x 17 x 19, 3 cm;
on bronze plaque; 33 x 25 x 21, 3 cm
Registration: on the left “A. Wildt "
Exceptional testimony to the sculptural ability and inventive ingenuity of Adolfo Wildt, The ear summarizes with extreme clarity the references to the academic tradition for the study of the anatomical detail of ancient sculpture with an insistent descriptive realism, redeemed by the secessionist line, twisted and enveloping, enhanced by surface polishing. In 1919 Wildt exhibited in the Galleria Pesaro in Milan the first marble version of the work mounted on a bronze plaque that was purchased, together with La Vittoria, by Giuseppe Chierichetti (now in a private collection). The version shown here was presented (with some small variations compared to the first draft) at the 1922 Venice Biennale, while a third version, still in marble and larger, was preserved as a model in the artist's atelier (unknown location) and in 1927 a bronze version was made, with even greater measures, to be placed as an intercom, on the advice of the architect Aldo Andreani, at the entrance of the monumental Sola-Busca building that had recently finished in via Serbelloni 10 in Milan. Appreciated since the first presentation, L'orecchio is enthusiastically described by Margherita Sarfatti (1919) and by the painter Anselmo Bucci who calls it "Titano's ear capable of containing the ocean's lowing" (1919, p. 279, quoted by O .Cucciniello, in Adolfo Wildt 2015, p. The work, in all likelihood, was born as the isolated development of the anatomical detail of the high-relief The prisoner, made between 1915 and 1918 (Sommariva photography; unknown location) and immediately takes the form of a plastic object for the formidable expressiveness and for a schematic synthesis of absolute modernity.
Bibliography: Mola 1988, pp. 63, 152, 163; O. Cucciniello, in Adolfo Wildt 2015, p. 132.
Valerio Terraroli
SOLD

Author: Adolfo Wildt
Dimensions: cm. 33 x 25 x 21,3
Year: 1922