Fausto Melotti’s La Bestia Veliero is a powerful example of the artist’s mastery of form and substance, order and harmony. At once delicately poetic and commandingly monumental, the present work embodies the artist’s unparalleled ability to effortlessly fuse mathematical precision with lyrical rhythm. Throughout his career, Melotti's rich and diverse artistic vision, spanning from the early 1930s to the mid-1980s, is articulated within a discrete vocabulary of meticulous formal clarity and unwavering commitment to the fundamental elements of art. Combining an imaginative narrative poetry with Renaissance principles of music, geometry and harmony, Melotti forged an entirely unique sculptural language, shaping the discourse of sculpture in the twentieth century toward new conceptions of spatial understanding.

Falling into the category of ‘chansons’, La Bestia Veliero is part of a group of delicate metal compositions through which Melotti sought to articulate a universally accessible visual language that unites mathematical and musical theory, in order to transfer rhythm out of time and into space. Generating a subtle tension between positive and negative space, long gold poles delimit the outlines of the work. La Bestia Veliero manages to achieve a sense of weightlessness with its almost intangible, linear framework – as space permeates the sculpture it eschews any sense of mass. “I use metal because it brings me close to drawing: with metal I can draw in space,” Melotti explained (Fausto Melotti cited in: B. Mantura, 'Per Fausto Melotti', in: Exh. Cat., Rome, Melotti, 1983, p. 10). La Bestia Veliero evokes the imposing heft of a large yacht, yet of the grand structure only a few lines delimiting the space remain. The sculptural plasticity is reduced to an extreme formal synthesis that acquires great intensity: through continuous, broken or sinuous lines, the form of the sailboat is freed from the weight of volumes and reveals itself in its true essence. In dialogue with the geometric constructions of his Swiss forbearer Alberto Giacometti and the weightless mobiles of Alexander Calder, Melotti’s gracefully assembled metal sculpture then reimagines sculptural boundaries.

From the outset of his artistic career in the early 1930s in Milan, Melotti was a key member of the post-war Milanese avant-garde. Following his degree in electrotechnical engineering at the University of Pisa in 1924, Melotti studied figurative art under the Symbolist sculptor Adolfo Wildt at the Accademia delle Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. An active member of the vibrant artistic milieu of pre-war Milan, Melotti befriended fellow student Lucio Fontana, whose work would have a lasting influence on him, as well as the Rationalist architects of Gruppo 7 and the abstract artists associated with the Galleria del Milione. Highly influenced by Fontana, he joined the Abstraction-Creations movement and firmly embraced the dialectic of non-figurative art. However, like many of the post-war European avant-garde, the horrors of the Second World War provoked a change in direction in his art. He began a series of miniature 'theatre scenes' – complete with small characters and objects – that were familiarly known as teatrini. Decades later, during the 1960s and 70s, he introduced more symbolic elements into his late works. Merging his early penchant for abstraction with playful narratives and lyrical subtlety, he created metal sculptures that have since garnered great international acclaim.

With a dainty fragility that contradicts any traditional notion of sculpture’s sturdy endurability, La Bestia Veliero truly encapsulates the poetry, mastery of composition and form along with the visual and technical excellence that Melotti had achieved at the height of his career.