Italy with Bow and the Fallen Hero - Monument to the Fallen of Saronno

This is the sketch presented to the competition for the Monument to the Fallen of Saronno which Andreotti won and for which he received the commission in ‘23. The judging committee was composed of Giulio Ulisse Arata, Adolfo Wildt and Ugo Ojetti. From a letter to Aldo Carpi of March 8, 1924, Andreotti informs that the bronze casting was carried out in Pistoia (“and for what the market has to offer the result is not so bad – he tells his friend – but we are very far from that perfect register of the French casting that I so well recall and regret and am quite frustrated about”); in 1925 the monument was inaugurated in Saronno at the presence of the Count of Turin. The two bronze figures that portray Italy holding the Bow and the Fallen Soldier, lay on a base of Saltrio stone and on it two bronze bas-reliefs are inserted with the Departure of the Hero and the Dead Hero. “Andreotti – Luigi Dami wrote –has created another art piece worthy of the great Italian monumental tradition with this heroic group, that comes right after the Roncade one”. An elementary composition, with simple arrangements of parts and pose solidity which unifies, without discrepancy, the ancient world, what has been learnt on recollection and what has been learnt upon memory: the spiked boots and the Aeginetic bow, the great grey-green drape, and the mantle of the “goddess” observed with romantic eyes; that same one which Apollo of Belvedere bears on his lifted arm”. And even in the final version the iconographic memories will appear as “mechanical and nearly hibernated”, with reference to Rodin and Bourdelle” (Monti, 1976), whose “Hercules the Archer” of 1910 must be cited above all.

Floor:
Room: Mature Works
Year: 1923-25
Author: Libero Andreotti