Armando Riva - Graal

The subject of the work is inspired by the legend of the Holy Grail, the cup with which, according to the tradition developed especially in the Breton epic cycle, Christ celebrated the Last Supper and in which Joseph of Arimathea collected the Redeemer's blood after his death. The Grail is central to the legends surrounding King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, as the object of a symbolic quest that signifies an initiatory self-knowledge.

Armando Riva's sculptures always present a perfect fusion of figurative language and an abstract conception of artistic creation. Indeed, he always begins with a concrete subject, whether a human or animal figure, or even an object, as in this case. The entire form is then transformed by the sculptor's complex, systematic elaboration of the bronze material. Thus, even the chalice seems to take on a biological, vegetal life of its own, in the movements that shake its vibrant surface. Formally, this translates into a summary rendering of the forms and decorative apparatus, based on a predominantly expressionistic tendency in representation.

Armando Riva was born in San Floriano, near Milan, in 1947. His artistic career, primarily as a sculptor, began in 1965, but he has also worked in painting, photography, and film. Since the 1970s, Armando Riva's work has taken on a more defined, more emotional, and expressionistic aesthetic, with a more developed use of diverse materials, including composites, such as bronze, Plexiglas, wood, and fiberglass. Thanks to the complex process of welding, milling, and filing, Armando Riva's sculptures have taken on a distinctive theatricality, identifiable in a constant struggle between form and material. His works have been exhibited in numerous national exhibitions, where the artist has consistently achieved critical and public acclaim.

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