Originally, ITALIAN SONNET was created as an architectural concept model my Master thesis. The thesis, titled INTERPRETATION OF POETIC FORM, involved translating the form of the sonnet into architecture. As such, ITALIAN SONNET is a translation (transformation?) of the form of the Italian sonnet into a physical object. The lighter horizontally oriented rock represents the octave, the darker vertically oriented rock represents the sestet and the dowel and twine represent the volta. > But ITALIAN SONNET is more than a concept model. It is more than a mere translation of a form of one medium into a form of another medium. ITALIAN SONNET is a transcendent artwork. It is poetry. It is a sculpture that does not aim to satisfy the eye. It aims to satisfy the heart and the mind. ITALIAN SONNET is an attempt to connect the art of the past with the art of the present with the art of the future.
ITALIAN SONNET connects us to our past, to our beginnings. It alludes to the menhirs, the cromlechs, the dolmens, and the Willendorf Venuses. It alludes to the primitive art of the primitive man. It alludes to the first rudimentary tools: the tying of a sharp rock to the end of a stick to make a spear. It alludes to the first shelters, the dark cold caves that our ancestors inhabited. It alludes to the beginning of thought and of civilization. > But ITALIAN SONNET connects us to our present. The sculpture is a modern artwork with a modern aesthetic. It is part of modern, abstract art tradition. The perceptive viewer can see it as being part of minimalist art, found art, assemblage art, land art, environmental art. It connects them all.
And ITALIAN SONNET connects us to our future. It connects us to our future by expressing universal truths that always were, are and will be. For example: the piece expresses man’s subjugation of nature (the controlling of, or the “tying-up” of the forces of nature). It expresses the “enslavement” of nature to men’s needs and desires. It also expresses the precariousness of culture and civilization (leave the sculpture outside or bury it in the ground and in less than a year after the twine and the wood dowel decomposes, the only thing left will be two unconnected rocks). But the sculpture does not only refer to the relationship between man and nature, it also refers to the relationship between men (ITALIAN SONNET is about war and conflict. The sculpture can be seen as a symbolic illustration of the mythic battle between Achilles and Hector) and the relationship between men and women (ITALIAN SONNET is about love).
But the allusions of the sculpture proliferate further, beyond Western art. ITALIAN SONNET alludes to the form of the yin-yang symbol. It alludes to the Japanese Zen garden with its stones “floating” in a pool of combed sand. And like the stones of the Zen garden that mean to represent mountains, ITALIAN SONNET is a small object that represents monumental ideas. > It is the poetic richness of ITALIAN SONNET that makes it one of the great sculptures of this century, and one of the great spiritual works of art of any century. With the simplest of means, this creation transcends matter and ascends to the realm of the spirit.
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ITALIAN SONNET, Sculpture, Concept Model
“Art is justified, as man is justified, by the faculty of forming ideas...” - Kenneth Clark. > ITALIAN SONNET, small enough to be held in the palm of the hand, represents the precarious binding of opposites: the eternal (rocks) with the temporal (wood, twine), nature (rocks) with culture (dowel, twine and the act of manipulation of these materials), male with female, light with dark. ITALIAN SONNET is a universal icon that may well be considered by future generations as one of the most important sculptures of the twenty-first century. The piece is now available for purchase directly from the artist.
