Читать книгу The Museo Vincenzo Vela in Ligornetto - Marc-Joachim Wasmer - Страница 8

Vela the revolutionary soon became a thorn in the side of the occupying power. When, in 1852, he refused the offer of an academic chair, which was intended to keep sympathizers of the opposition in their place, he had to take refuge in his own country, where he established friendships with many refugees. A few months later he emigrated to the free and liberal city of Turin, the hub of the Risorgimento. There he was able to count on new commissions and his influence began to be felt abroad.

Success soon followed: he made his name not only through numerous public and private sculpture commissions, but also his work as a professor at the Accademia Albertina, a position conferred on him in 1856 by King Vittorio Emanuele II. In the course of the next fourteen years he had the rare opportunity to spread his style, and in a relatively minor artistic milieu his art became an undisputed model. Based in the city that had the most political clout in the Italian peninsula, Vela had a profound and lasting influence on monumental sculpture throughout the country. In a short space of time verism came to be seen as the quintessence of Italian style, at home and abroad. The first works Vela executed in Turin were portraits, interpreted with psychological finesse, and numerous funerary monuments, mainly in the form of personifications in modern dress (Hope, Desolation, Doleful Harmony, Our Lady of Sorrows). Drawing inspiration from historic models, he came up with solutions that were as modern as they were astonishing, the archetype being the family chapel of the Counts d’Adda at Arcore, in which are represented Maria Isimbardi d’Adda on her deathbed (1851–1852) and Our Lady of Sorrows with Christ’s crown of thorns (1851–1853, XX).