ITALIAN notebook

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No Contest

Rome - It's almost hard not to feel a bit sorry for Giuseppe Obici. One imagines a note delivered back in 1858 . . . "Dear Giuseppe, wouldn't you please come down to S.Maria sopra Minerva tomorrow. We would like to commission some art work. - Sincerely, Parish Priest".

Maybe sketchbook in hand, thinking "Big break!" Giuseppe's light heart surely sank like a brick when he was asked to sculpt a statue for the base of the right column of the altar . . "you know . . . to create balance with that other statue, of Christ the Redeemer, over by the left column."

How so? "That other statue" literally glows. Giuseppe's St. John the Baptist instead seems . . . dusty. A good technical sculptor by all means, but no master. "That other statue" employs contrapposto, (counterpoise, dynamic tension), an ancient Greco-Roman technique boldly re-introduced to the western world 300+ years earlier by its very same sculptor. Giuseppe's St.John instead only manages to lean backwards a bit . . . startled, intimidated even. "That other statue" embodies a narrative . . . Christ is holding, lovingly guarding even, those very same symbols of his martyrdom . . . not much going on with St.John, besides some boilerplate Roman emperor-like "gravitas".

To add insult to injury, "that other statue" is considered one of the less interesting, less accomplished, "early works" of its sculptor, AND was done in a rush, last minute, deadline looming, after having been put off for five years in favor of "more important" work.

One look at the small brass tags at the base of the statues and it becomes perfectly clear. In the right corner, "Giovanni Battista, G.Obici", and in the left "Cristo Redentore, Michelangelo".

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