Art Of The Day Weekly

#384 - from 16 April 2015 to 22 April 2015


Adolfo Wildt, Carattere fiero–Anima gentile, 1912, partially gilded marble, 38x57x37 cm. Venice, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Ca’ Pesaro 2015 © Photo Archive – Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

The Wildt mystery

PARIS – He was celebrated three years ago in a beautiful exhibition in Forli, Mussolini’s town. The relationship he entertained with the Duce (of whom he made a famous bust) weighed on his reputation. Adolfo Wildt (1868-1931) was quite forgotten in Italy, and even more so in France. By recently buying one of his works, the bronze sculpture Vir temporis acti, and by prepring this retrospective at the Orangerie museum, the musée d’Orsay sheds light on this strange, susceptible and solitary artist, who carries out a fusion between the virtuosity of the Renaissance (he actually had a German sponsor for nearly a quarter of a century, who was as faithful as those of Michelangelo or Raphael), Symbolism and Expressionism. His tortured characters with exaggerated muscles stand halfway between the Apollo of the Belvedere and the grinning busts of Messerschmitt.
Adolfo Wildt, le dernier symboliste at the musée de l’Orangerie, from 15 April to 13 July 2015.

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