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Lot Essay
This work is recorded in the Manzù archive under no. 125-2005.
Visiting Rome in 1934, Giacomo Manzù enjoyed an epiphany. The sight of the Pope seated between two cardinals would have a lasting impact on his work, resulting in the predominance of the Cardinale as a theme in his sculptures for the rest of his life. Executed in 1957, Cardinale seduto is a unique cast that harnesses the sculptural, plastic qualities of the cardinals that so intrigued the artist. By the late 1950s, the increasingly pared-back features of the Cardinali provided a template within which Manzù could freely explore both the visual and the conceptual aspects of his theme.
Although religious subjects had featured in Manzù's works, his Cardinali are not religious sculptures. Instead, Manzù found that the robes of the cardinals had a visual power that he sought to capture in his sculptures. 'I should say that when they are the model, rather than any other works of a religious nature, I am not specifically thinking of religion,' Manzù insisted. 'What I have made has no link with the Church. It... could also be the case that the laymen are the ones who understand better than others what is expressed in the religious world' (Manzù, quoted in M. Pisani, 'Intervista a Giacomo Manzù', exh. cat., Manzù, Milan, 1988, p. 48).
This understanding of the religious world of cardinals is embodied in his sculptures. Cardinale seduto explores the enigmatic tension between the cardinal's almost armoured physical presence and his intense spirituality. Manzù was fascinated by these links to another invisible and spiritual realm, by the blurred boundaries between the terrestrial and the ethereal. This mixture of the cardinal's intense physicality and his abnegation of the corporeal world had ramifications within the realm of sculpture itself, allowing Manzù to introduce a shimmering, impossible and elusive dimension to his apparently solid Cardinale seduto.
Visiting Rome in 1934, Giacomo Manzù enjoyed an epiphany. The sight of the Pope seated between two cardinals would have a lasting impact on his work, resulting in the predominance of the Cardinale as a theme in his sculptures for the rest of his life. Executed in 1957, Cardinale seduto is a unique cast that harnesses the sculptural, plastic qualities of the cardinals that so intrigued the artist. By the late 1950s, the increasingly pared-back features of the Cardinali provided a template within which Manzù could freely explore both the visual and the conceptual aspects of his theme.
Although religious subjects had featured in Manzù's works, his Cardinali are not religious sculptures. Instead, Manzù found that the robes of the cardinals had a visual power that he sought to capture in his sculptures. 'I should say that when they are the model, rather than any other works of a religious nature, I am not specifically thinking of religion,' Manzù insisted. 'What I have made has no link with the Church. It... could also be the case that the laymen are the ones who understand better than others what is expressed in the religious world' (Manzù, quoted in M. Pisani, 'Intervista a Giacomo Manzù', exh. cat., Manzù, Milan, 1988, p. 48).
This understanding of the religious world of cardinals is embodied in his sculptures. Cardinale seduto explores the enigmatic tension between the cardinal's almost armoured physical presence and his intense spirituality. Manzù was fascinated by these links to another invisible and spiritual realm, by the blurred boundaries between the terrestrial and the ethereal. This mixture of the cardinal's intense physicality and his abnegation of the corporeal world had ramifications within the realm of sculpture itself, allowing Manzù to introduce a shimmering, impossible and elusive dimension to his apparently solid Cardinale seduto.