Giacomo Manzu - The Pastoral

The subject of this sculpture by Giacomo Manzù has specific religious symbolic references. The figure of the shepherd has, since early Christian times, been an image of Christ (the so-called "Good Shepherd"). The depiction of a dove with an olive branch, on the other hand, takes on the precise symbolic connotation of a wish for peace among all the peoples of the world. The symbolism derives from the biblical episode of the dove that, bringing Noah an olive branch, indicated the end of the Great Flood.

The sculpture is typical of the work of Giacomo Manzù, an artist whose research was shaped by the general climate of "return to order" that characterized Italian contemporary art in the post-World War II period. In sculpture, as we can also see in the work of other important figures such as Marino Marini and Arturo Martini, this coincided with an exaltation of plasticity. Thus, this representation of the Pastoral stands out precisely for that exaltation of plasticity that characterizes Manzù's work. A swollen plasticity, inspired by rounded forms, whose essentiality also references a taste open to the influences of architecture and design. Thus, the subject is realized through clean, geometric, and rational lines, where the connotation of sensory data is replaced by a dry and lucid essentiality, which identifies the aesthetic value of the work precisely in the expansion and balance of its volumes. Even in this research, divided between plasticity and expressive essentiality, however, we cannot help but underline the technical ability of a master like Giacomo Manzù in giving shape to a living figure, thanks to a dynamic and vibrant sculptural material.

Giacomo Manzù is the pseudonym of Giacomo Manzoni, a sculptor born in Bergamo in 1908 and who died in Rome in 1991. After a brief stay in Paris, he moved to Milan in 1929, where he participated in an exhibition at the Galleria Il Milione. Some of his works were exhibited first at the Milan Triennale in 1933 and then at the 'Cometa' gallery in Rome. In 1940, he was appointed professor of sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts, but soon moved to Turin and began teaching sculpture at the Accademia Albertina. In 1943, his nude Francesca Blanc won the Rome Quadriennale prize. After the war, he returned to teaching, first at the Brera Academy until 1954, and then in Salzburg until 1960. He worked on several monumental doors: the Door of Death for St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican (1964), the Door of Love for Salzburg Cathedral (1955–1958), and the Door of Peace and War for the church of Saint Laurens in Rotterdam (1965–1968). In 1979, he donated his entire collection to the Italian state. His last major work, a 6-meter-high bronze sculpture placed in front of the UN headquarters in New York, dates from 1989.

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