Adolfo Wildt Italian, 1868-1931

'A work of art is not for the eyes, it is for the soul' - Adolfo Wildt

The subject of the soul recurs across Wildt's oeuvre. The soul, and how it expresses itself through the materiality of the body, was the central preoccupation of Wildt's symbolist artistic sensibility.

This preoccupation is carefully embodied in the present model. The phrase Carattere fiero Anima gentile describes Wildt's idea of the 'quality of every good spirit', combining a strong and assertive outward aspect with a gentle and sensitive soul. The outward aspect is described by the frowning face of masculinity, which stands in front of the gentle feminine face of the soul. The twirling tresses of the female head connect the two like nerves. 

The woman with her hair in plaits and a pearled net has been likened to an iconic Renaissance woman, Beatrice D'Este. Both faces resonate with physyonomic studies in the canon of Italian sculpture such as the Anima Beata and Anima Dannata by Gianlorenzo Bernini.  

Wildt's art is deeply evocative and conceptual. For him the joining of concept and material execution is as seemless as the union between soul and body.

A gilt marble version of this model, first exhibited in 1913, is in the Cà Pesaro, Venice. Autonomous casts of the female face are known.

RELATED LITERATURE
Adolfo Wildt e i suoi allievi, ex. cat. Palazzo Martinengo, Brescia, 2000, p.52, cat. 8