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Lot Essay
Executed, in 1959, at a time when the artist was moving away from bas-reliefs to more three-dimensional forms and experimenting with the different mediums, Colonna del viaggiatore ('Voyager's Column') marks an important shift in focus for the artist and an increase in his confidence as a craftsman.
Colonna del viaggiatore traverses many different levels. Spiritually it is descendant of ancient stelae of earlier civilisations. Physically, it shows the excellence of Italian craftmanship and the influence of Modern masters like Paul Klee and Lucio Fontana. Metaphorically, it could be seen as a symbol of man's existential condition.
The symbolism of the ancient upright stone monuments which were markers of important events, sacred places or people, is plain to see. Similarly Pomodoro's sculpture is often created specifically for exhibition in public places to commemorate the success of an organisation or town. In Mesoamerica (300B.C.-200A.D.), upright stone monuments marked the perceived transformation of rulers into birds, that is to say, the stelae were a point of transition on a spiritual journey from life to death; from humanity to deity. For Pomodoro, this work marks his creative development from relief to free-standing sculpture.
Colonna del viaggiatore is incised on both sides with the lacerated criss-crossed surface which has been compared to archaic writing. Indeed the earliest known writing on upright monuments was also 'illegible' - a 'morse code'. Many early alphabets were made up of diagonal and upright strokes along a solid line and were 'read' from bottom to top. However, the present work is not mimicking egyptian hieroglphic writing "the language of the gods". For Pomodoro these decorated or scarred surfaces on his work were a more unconscious amalgam of abstraction and reality and derive their influence more from the work of Paul Klee rather than ancient pictorial language. Klee's complex language of symbols and signs which appeared subconsciously in his work in the 1920s in particular, seems to have had a profound influence on Pomodoro's methods. Klee is reknowned for his skill at communicating his reflections on the human condition through an ingenius combination of line, colour and form. Similarly Pomodoro felt that his "flawed surfaces must be associated with man's existential condition, with risk, action and self definition" (as quoted in S. Hunter, Arnaldo Pomodoro, New York 1982, p. 32).
Colonna del viaggiatore traverses many different levels. Spiritually it is descendant of ancient stelae of earlier civilisations. Physically, it shows the excellence of Italian craftmanship and the influence of Modern masters like Paul Klee and Lucio Fontana. Metaphorically, it could be seen as a symbol of man's existential condition.
The symbolism of the ancient upright stone monuments which were markers of important events, sacred places or people, is plain to see. Similarly Pomodoro's sculpture is often created specifically for exhibition in public places to commemorate the success of an organisation or town. In Mesoamerica (300B.C.-200A.D.), upright stone monuments marked the perceived transformation of rulers into birds, that is to say, the stelae were a point of transition on a spiritual journey from life to death; from humanity to deity. For Pomodoro, this work marks his creative development from relief to free-standing sculpture.
Colonna del viaggiatore is incised on both sides with the lacerated criss-crossed surface which has been compared to archaic writing. Indeed the earliest known writing on upright monuments was also 'illegible' - a 'morse code'. Many early alphabets were made up of diagonal and upright strokes along a solid line and were 'read' from bottom to top. However, the present work is not mimicking egyptian hieroglphic writing "the language of the gods". For Pomodoro these decorated or scarred surfaces on his work were a more unconscious amalgam of abstraction and reality and derive their influence more from the work of Paul Klee rather than ancient pictorial language. Klee's complex language of symbols and signs which appeared subconsciously in his work in the 1920s in particular, seems to have had a profound influence on Pomodoro's methods. Klee is reknowned for his skill at communicating his reflections on the human condition through an ingenius combination of line, colour and form. Similarly Pomodoro felt that his "flawed surfaces must be associated with man's existential condition, with risk, action and self definition" (as quoted in S. Hunter, Arnaldo Pomodoro, New York 1982, p. 32).