Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington

Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington

In 1886 and then in 1898 the US Congress proposed for the first time the construction of a new bridge over the Potomac River in Washington, but to no avail. In 1902, the Senate Park Commission proposed in its so-called McMillan Plan to build one at the western end of West Potomac Park (an area that the Senate Park Commission successfully proposed as the site for the Lincoln Memorial) across the Potomac River to Arlington National Cemetery. . This bridge would line up with Arlington House as a symbol and memorial to the nation’s unification after the American Civil War.

On March 4, 1913, the US Congress finally enacted the Public Buildings Act, which, among other things, created and financed an Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission (AMBC) whose purpose was to design the bridge. The suggestion was for a classical style architecture on the type of bridges built during the Roman Empire, or a neoclassical model.
But due to the start of the First World War, the US Congress did not allocate the funds for the operation.
The US Congress finally authorized the construction of the Arlington Memorial Bridge in 1925.

With the project in hand, work began to authorize its construction: and in 1928 it was decided to place equestrian statues on the 4 pylons of the bridge project.
James Earle Fraser and Leo Friedlander were both commissioned to make the sculptures.

Leo Friedlander (July 6, 1888 – October 24, 1966), American sculptor, had studied at the Art Students League in New York City, at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Brussels and Paris and at the American Academy in Rome, he also had a passion for Etruscan art. He was assistant to sculptor Paul Manship and had taught at the American Academy in Rome and at New York University, where he headed the sculpture department. He was president of the National Sculpture Society. In 1936 he was elected associate member of the National Academy of Design and in 1949 he became a full academic.

Government regulations required sculptors to create four versions of their plaster work before final approval for making could begin. These models had to be smaller and in three different sizes in addition to the actual size one. By June 1929, the smaller models were finished.

In the early 1930s, Friedlander and Fraser were discussing the positioning and pedestals for the two equestrian groups with the Army Corps of Engineers about .
In December 1930 the Commission of Arts (CFA) approved the larger models in which the details on the sculptures were better read. Friedlander’s two statuary groups were called Valor and Call to Arms (later renamed Sacrifice). These two groups were to frame the entrance to the Arlington Memorial Bridge.

The set of 4 models by the two sculptors were called The Arts of War. Friedlander’s two statuary groups were in an Art Deco style known as “Delayed Deco”.
“Valor” was based on a study that Friedlander had completed in 1915-1916 while a member of the American Academy in Rome, while “Sacrifice” was created specifically for the bridge: the sculpture modeled in 1929, used the same figures as Valor but with the addition of the figure of a child.

The sculptures were originally to be made in bronze but the AMBC had specified instead that the statues were to be made of white granite.
Fraser’s two statuary groups were titled “Music and Harvest” and “Aspiration and Literature”. known as The Arts of Peace. Both modeled in a modern neoclassical style.
The contracts (probably for the full-size models) were made shortly after the CFA meeting on 11 December 1930.
In January 1931 the positioning of the 4 sculptures was again discussed.
Finally, on October 24, 1932, the Commission visited Fraser’s studio in Westport, Connecticut and approved his designs.
When the models half the size of the originals were about to be completed in 1933, the CFA put the project on hold. By now, the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression. The bridge was finished and cost more than budget and the funds available for the 4 granite statues were seized under the 1933 Economy Act. However, the CFA, with the full-size models already paid for, asked the sculptors to finish the their work. The CFA visited Friedlander’s studio in White Plains, New York, on October 14, 1933, and approved his designs.
In October 1933, the CFA approved the height of the statues (each would be 16 feet (4.9 m) high), the pedestals 13 feet (4.0 m) high, and the height of the plinth under the statues would be 1 foot tall (0.30m). Granite from Mount Airy, from North Carolina, would have been used for the bases.
Applications for partial funding for the four monuments in 1935, 1937, 1938 and 1939 were unsuccessful. However, in 1939 Fraser and Friedlander completed the full-size models.
James Earle Fraser suggested that the statues be cast in bronze, which allowed for considerable savings over granite sculpture; Friedlander and the CFA agreed with this suggestion, and in August 1941 both sculptors signed contracts to redesign their models for bronze casting.
But during the Second World War, the money for the project was no longer available.
In January 1948, the National Park Service informed the CFA that $ 1 million in authorized funds existed to complete the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Fraser reported on the foundry quotes he had received in the summer of 1947 and, at the request of the Park Service, the CFA asked Congress for an initial grant of $ 185,000 to start the work, but did not get it.
At the CFA meeting on September 13, 1948, the commission again discussed how to obtain an appropriation to perform the groups of statues. American foundries had not been converted from war work to art fusion. In addition, only one foundry in America was large enough to handle the work, and its contract required a sliding scale clause, a clause not accepted by federal budget officials. Congressmen thought of asking a European nation to consider statues, for the payment of castings, as part of the Marshall Plan, with broad consensus from the CFA and sculptors.
In 1949, the Italian government agreed to use funds from the Marshall Plan to cast the four statues of the Arlington Memorial Bridge. In October, officials of the National Park Service and the sculptors Fraser and Friedlander came to Italy to inspect various foundries and found a work agreement: and in 1950 the work began. The plaster models arrived in Italy in January. However, customs officials kept them for several weeks outdoors, in the cold, in the rain and snow. Fraser’s student, Edward Minazolli, traveled to Italy to help supervise the casting process and found that the models had deteriorated. With the permission of Fraser and Friedlander, he had them repaired and restored.
The Bruni Foundry in Rome and the Lagana Foundry in Naples cast the sculptures assigned to them. and intended to use fire gilding. But the quality of the samples was not satisfactory, as was the color of the gilding. Fraser then asked to apply for part of the casting work to the Battaglia foundry in Milan and the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry in Florence. The work of the Milanese foundry was as discreet as that carried out by the Neapolitan foundry. The Florentine foundry, on the other hand, did an excellent job of casting but did not like the color of the gilding: it was then made in Milan.
The four statuary groups were assembled at the end of April 1951.

They were inaugurated on May 3 and then exhibited in various Italian fairs before being shipped to the United States. The four groups of statues were transported from Milan to Norfolk, Virginia aboard the SS Rice Victory, then placed aboard a United States Navy barge and taken up the Potomac River to Washington, DC.

During the inauguration of the four groups of statues on September 26, 1951, the Italian Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi officially offered the statues to the United States as a gift from the Italian people, through the then Italian Ambassador Alberto Tarchiani, as a sign of gratitude for their assistance. American in the reconstruction of Italy after the Second World War; US President Harry S. Truman accepted the statues, inaugurated by the wives of James Earle Fraser and Leo Friedlander. In his remarks after the inauguration, President Truman pledged to remove some military and economic constraints imposed on Italy in the 1947 peace treaty.

Across from the Arlington Memorial Bridge from the District of Columbia, the Sacrifice sculpture is on the right.
A bearded and muscular male nude, a symbol of Mars, holds a small child in his arms, with his head bowed. The half-naked woman is to her right, from behind with her head turned back to look at the knight, while with her outstretched right arm she touches his right elbow.

Each monument weighed approximately 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg). Each was 19 feet (5.8 m) tall, 16 feet (4.9 m) long and 8 feet (2.4 m) wide. While the pieces of the Sacrifice were all welded together, those of James Earle Fraser’s “Music and Harvest” were bolted together cold.
The total cost of transporting, casting, and gilding the four groups was $ 300,000. Fraser and Friedlander were each paid $ 107,000.
Each pedestal has 36 equally spaced gilt bronze stars at the top, representing the number of states in the United States at the time of the American Civil War. At the front of each pedestal is a classic flower crown, designed and sculpted by Vincent Tonelli (who also sculpted the Trylon of Freedom in front of E. Barrett Prettyman’s US courthouse). According to art curator Susan Menconi The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace were the largest equestrian sculptures in the United States.

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The beginning of Renaissance sculpture: Donatello’s David

The beginning of Renaissance sculpture: Donatello's David

The fifteenth century, the beginning of the Renaissance, is a founding moment of Western culture, whose principles, philosophy and art are marked up to the present day.
In this century a group of brilliant characters are born in Florence in all human knowledge: science, astronomy, philosophy, literature, humanism, esotericism, everything finds a new breath thanks to them. Even today no one has been able to explain why so many geniuses were born in this historical period and all in one region, Tuscany.
One of these characters is Donato Niccolò di Betto Bardi, known as Donatello, Florentine and sculptor

Portrait of Donatello from the 16th century (anonymous) – Louvre Museum

He is a friend of Brunelleschi,

Portrait of Brunelleschi, by Masaccio, S. Pietro in Cattedra, Cappella Brancacci, Florence

another great innovator in the various fields of art, and he goes to Rome with him to study ancient monuments: the two wandered around the city digging the ancient ruins, measuring and drawing the remains of classical buildings and the Roman people thought that they were two treasure seekers. The treasure for them were those remains.
After the first few works still in late Gothic style, Donatello broke away completely from the medieval taste, returning to sculpture in a classical Roman style, but more elegant and sensual, helping to create the “Renaissance style” in sculpture.
He also attended Michelozzo, skilled in lost wax bronze casting, from whom he learned this technique.

Fra Angelico, Deposition from the Cross, San Marco Museum, Florence

One of his most important masterpieces is the bronze David,

Bargello Museum, Florence

of surprising originality and innovative strength. The iconography given by Donatello to this masterpiece is undoubtedly different from the traditional one referring to the Bible: in addition to nudity, David wears an elegant hat that brings him closer to Mercury and beautiful chiseled shoes, attributes that were embellished by gilding, gone lost. Nudity, pose and accessories make this masterpiece very sensual, and this is a new vision of sculpture born in Florence during the Renaissance.
We do not have much information about this bronze; one comes from a letter that the Renaissance chronicler Marco Parenti wrote from Florence to Filippo Strozzi the Elder, who was in Naples.

Marco Parenti was a wealthy business owner in the silk sector, born in Florence in 1421; he had the intelligence to marry Caterina, daughter of the very wealthy banker Simone Strozzi, and he retired from business. He participated in Florentine cultural life by attending humanistic circles with Leon Battista Alberti. He wrote the “Historical Memories” related to the political affairs of Florence.

And a long series of letters, almost all sent to Filippo Strozzi.

In one of these, he reports that on the occasion of the wedding of Lorenzo the Magnificent with Clarice Orsini, the column supporting Donatello’s David was placed in the courtyard of the Palazzo Medici in Via Larga (now Via Cavour). The date of the marriage is 1469. This is the first “post quem” date we have concerning the David.
The dating of the work is obtained considering that Donatello in the early 1400s went again to Rome to study classical ancient sculpture, and that from 1443 to 1445 he was working in Northern Italy. So the period in which Donatello performed David shrinks from 1433 to 1454. In this range of years Donatello executed three other sculptures very close stylistically to the David: the Attis (Bargello Museum)

and the two “goblins”, now at the Musee Jacquemart Andree in Paris,

performed for the cornice of the Cantoria by Luca della Robbia for the Duomo of Florence, completed in 1438 (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo).

At Villa Carducci di Legnaia (Florence), in the cycle of illustrious women and men,

between 1448 and 1450, Andrea del Castagno painted the fresco portrait of Farinata degli Uberti (now in the Uffizi), which has the same pose as the legs and arms of David, evidently copied from it. So the scissor narrows again, becoming from 1433 to 1448.

The most accepted hypothesis is that Donatello executed the model and the fusion around 1440.
We have seen that the David was placed on a column in the center of the courtyard of Palazzo Medici Riccardi;

we know that the inscription that Cosimo the Elder asked to Gentile de ’Becchi, the first pedagogue of Lorenzo and Giuliano, sons of Piero il Gottoso, to write on the column in Latin: Victor est quisquis patriam tuetur / Frangit immanis Deus hostis iras / En puer grandem domuit Tirannum / Vincite cives!
This epigraph shows us that the Medici wanted to give the David, (the young shepherd who kills the powerful and overbearing enemy Goliath) exposed in their house an important moral and political message with a clear anti-tyrannical meaning; the message was that the presence of the Medici in Florentine politics guaranteed the repression of any attack on democracy, wherever it came from. And this was the policy of the Medici: to command the city but indirectly, through other people loyal to them, making the city believe in maintaining a democratic regime (not long after, instead, Cosimo I of the other branch of the Medici family will become dictator, with the title of Duke, then of Grand Duke).

Portrait of Bronzino, Uffizi

It is very probable that the work was committed to Donatello by Cosimo the Elder himself,

Portrait of Bronzino, Uffizi

that he would have first exhibited in his Casa Vecchia, and later in the Medici palace designed for him by Michelozzo.

Giovanni da Castro was a businessman connected both to the Medici family and to the Curia of Rome. He discovered the Tolfa alum quarries that made it unnecessary to buy the alum from the Turks, infidels and mainly skilled traders. And in fact, in the wake of the biblical David that kills Goliath, he made write the Psalmum in Christianorum hostem Turchum on a code that he donated, before 1469 to Cosimo the Elder, where the Turks are considered as invading heretics and enemies of Christianity, conquerors in 1453 of Constantinople. In the miniature of this code the Donatello’s David is painted, but covered with a little tunic to make it less risqué.

The column on which the David rested had been made by Desiderio da Settignano around 1458, and was about two meters high,

That the sculpture was made by Donatello to stand up high and then to be seen from below is confirmed, by his gaze facing down,

and also by a series of anatomical forcing studied according to the point of view of the observer placed much lower than the sculpture: the shoulder blades fell the same as the buttocks, the broken and flattened lower back, the angular joints; moreover the head of the Goliath is bent so as to make visible from below the trapezoidal plaque of the Goliath helmet with the cart of the goblins.

Seen from the current base

Seen in the original position

And there are also some areas of the bronze that Donatello has not refined that could not be seen from the bottom, thanks to the protrusion of the base garland. The head of the Goliath seen today at the height in which it is the David at the Bargello gives a very different impression when viewed from the bottom upwards: the feeling of a dead and fairly harmless thing becomes, when viewed from below, threatening.
And even the positioning of the upper body made his nudity less striking. Nudity that Donatello had the courage to exalt in his work in years when no one had dared to do so. So much so that the many David of the second half of the 1400s show this biblical character always covered with tunics, as also in the code of Giovanni da Castro.

We will have to wait until the sixteenth century with Michelangelo to see another completely naked David.

It has been hypothesized that the original column of Desiderio da Settignano on which the David was placed in the Palazzo Medici in Via Larga, had at its base four white marble harpies and the stem of red porphyry. Specialized technicians have reproduced this artefact inside the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry.

Under construction in the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry

currently at the Bazzanti Gallery in Florence.

For the presentation and inauguration of the Donatello’s David after the long restoration, the Bargello Museum in Florence has borrowed from the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry a bronze copy of the David made on the negative mold taken on the original of the the Marinell’s Foundry gipsoteca. This bronze was gilded by the Bargello technicians exactly like
it was the original before losing the gold,

and ha been placed on the model of the reconstructed column next to the original. It has been thus possible to see, for the first time, as it appeared in the fifteenth century, in the courtyard of the Medici, the David seen from below.

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Another marble colossus: the replica of the Farnese Hercules

Another marble colossus: the replica of the Farnese Hercules

Another exciting adventure has been to sculpt in marble the colossal Farnese Hercules of the Naples Museum, a Greek statue of the III century AD., 3,17 meters high.

It is one of the few ancient sculptures signed by the author: Glicone di Atene, as can be seen engraved on the base of the club.

Even in ancient Greece, and not only in Rome, replicas were also loved, even in different sizes from the original ones: in fact, this marble is the enlarged replica of the original bronze made in the 4th century BC. by the famous Lisippo, lost.
Hercules, symbol of superhuman strength, and in fact was a demigod, is represented with a powerful exaggerated anatomy. His attributes are the skin of the Nemean lion, sent by Hera (Juno) to kill Hercules. His skin was unassailable by spears and arrows, but Hercules stunned him with his club (on which he rests in the sculpture) and then strangled him. He used his skin to make himself a kind of garment that made him invulnerable that, in the sculpture, dangled on the club. These accessories were used by the sculptor to create a huge side support to which the Hero leans: it would have been impossible to support his body mass, moreover inclined, only on the two ankles.

The Renaissance restorations

The colossus was dug in the Baths of Caracalla in Rome in the mid-1500s, without the left forearm and legs. The philosophy of restoration during the Renaissance was generally that of recreating the missing parts of the ancient works, so as to reassemble their presumed integrity. It was very difficult for those who had a more “scientific” mentality to persuade the owners of the archaeological works to leave them as they were found, without integration. Consider for example the twins Romulus and Remus added in the Renaissance to the Capitoline Lupa probably by Antonio del Pollaiolo.
Perhaps only Michelangelo succeeded with the marble Belvedere Torso of the I century a. C. (by the Greek sculptor Apollonio), found mutilated in Rome in the 15th century.

It seems that when Pope Julius II turned to Michelangelo to rediscover the missing parts, the latter refused, declaring that the sculpture was so magnificent and it should not be absolutely touched. On the other hand, his pupil Guglielmo della Porta did not had many problems in re-sculpt the missing legs of Farnese Hercules, satisfying the commissioner Pope Paolo III Alessandro Farnese so much that, even when the original legs were dug, he decided to leave those of Della Porta, judging them better than the original ones.

The marble replica

The marble sculpture was performed in the Studio Bazzanti with the technics called “in points” thanks to the model taken from the original by the Fonderia Artistica Ferdinando Marinelli.

The difficult transportation

The five tons colossus was crated at the Sculpture Studio.

The next phase was almost as complex as having carved the Hercules! In fact, it was a matter of letting the colossus into the Galleria Bazzanti of Florence horizontally and then standing it in the right place. Having had the Lungarno closed to traffic, the operation took place at night.

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