I've never felt the least inclination to form any kind of aesthetic opinion on this sculpture of Dante and Virgil situated in the lagoon between Fondamenta Nove and the cemetery island of San Michele, but I can tell you that its creator was a Russian sculptor named Georgi Frangulyan, that it was placed in its present spot in 2007, and that, considering it weighs 2 tons, any decision to remove it won't be undertaken lightly.
It's inspired by the two poets' crossing of the river Styx in Canto 8 of L'Inferno toward the flaming city of Dis.
To voice an aestetic opinion would be a be a bit preposterous for me as well but had I been a Venetian accompanying a departed loved-one on the final journey to the cemetery I'd be a bit less than happy about having a statue of two men in a boat, heading for Hell, pointing towards that same cemetery. With that said I think that whatever aestetic benefits that thing might, or might not, have it would be better if they were displayed elsewhere. If they were to angle it slightly towards Norway it might work, because there is actually a small city there called Hell. :)
ReplyDeleteI can understand this concern, Andreas, but the figure of Virgil is not pointing toward the cemetery island of San Michele. If I remember correctly his gesture is more toward the mainland, specifically in the direction of the airport. I've never noticed that Virgil's hand was ever directed toward the cemetery, though now that I've just done a search to find more images of the piece I have come across a blog post from 2014 that says Virgil is pointing at San Michele. If he was then, he is not now.
DeleteI guess I've also just never taken the piece so literally. If I thought of it at all, I guess I did only so far as to think of the piece as being situated in the watery margin between the living and the dead. And to think of Dante's exclamation, famously adopted by Eliot for The Wasteland, "I did not know Death had undone so many!"
But I really have no opinion on the piece aside from a certain dim general pleasure in being reminded of Dante and Virgil when I see it--and certainly not specifically of Canto 8 of L'Inferno. It could be pretty awful in all kinds of ways, not least of them aesthetic, but none of that has ever mattered to me.
Maybe that came out harsher than I intended. I’m just a bit sensitive when it comes to such matters and the slightest reference to Hell in connection to funerals makes me shiver.
ReplyDeleteI can understand that, Andreas, but for some reason I never really associated the work in a concrete real-world way with San Michele, not least of all, as it's not pointing toward it.
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