Flora

This female figure reveals an aristocratic posture and a fierce attitude: she is wearing a long richly pleated dress fastened under her breast, a conic shaped hat that looks rather like a curly snail hairdo, that underlines her refined profile, while recalling solid definitions of ancient statuary, here rendered in a domestic measure. The technique is smooth, caressing and rich of delicate refinements, and refers to the previous sculpture “Thoroughbred” of 1907, which Vittorio Pica in the Venice Biennial catalogue defined as a technique “made of plastic sensuality and cerebral subtleties”. One could use the same terms for Flora to describe a model of equilibrium, volumes, symmetry and great expressive refinement. The art piece also recalls the “Penelope” (1908) of Bourdelle with its solid deliberateness of the figure in her richly pleated dress. Andreotti will remember Bourdelle during the following years in order to find clever solutions for clothed femininity, as in his “Fruit Vendor” of 1917.

Floor:
Room: Early Works
Year: 1913
Author: Libero Andreotti