Love and Fidelity

A short life that of the sculptor Pietro Freccia (1814-1856), a life dedicated to marble from the early years, a life that was opening to fame and success, but which was tragically interrupted at the age of thirty-two, later an accidental fall from a scaffolding on which he was working to complete the well-known Monument to Christopher Columbus, place in Piazza Acquaverde in Genoa. We were in 1854; after two years, due to the serious injuries suffered, he died. The cruelty of destiny did not allow him to continue on a promising path, with his marvelous works, born in the wake of Lorenzo Bartolini's masterly vocabulary, in which, however, the careful and meticulous analysis of the truth, even with a matrix implantation classic, it would have led to different stylistic outcomes. And it is precisely in the presence of one of his works, Love and Fidelity , of 1840, currently preserved in the Modern Art Gallery of Palazzo Pitti in Florence that the artist's language can be comprehensively understood. A child, personification of Love, appears seated on an ideal trunk while looking back, veiled with tears restrained, towards the loyalty, represented by a lifeless dog at his feet. The quiver with all the arrows is abandoned. Love can no longer hit with its unpredictable arrows. The anacreontic theme, as well as the structural and stylistic construction of the figure do not deviate from the dictates of neoclassical poetics even if a warm and familiar thrill runs from within the icy marble, making tangible human pain of the mythological character who suffers visibly in the presence of the figuration, real and tangible, of the Fidelity , a dog that in the last yearning of life chooses to rest the head on the child's foot, seeking in this last physical contact a safe harbor to wonder that life to all we impose.雕塑家彼得罗·弗雷恰（Pietro Freccia，1814-1856）的一生短暂而充满遗憾：他早年便投身大理石雕刻创作，创作生涯本已渐入佳境，渐获声名与成功，却在32岁时戛然而止。1854年，他在热那亚阿夸韦尔德广场（Piazza Acquaverde）为完成著名的克里斯托弗·哥伦布纪念碑（Monument to Christopher Columbus）搭建的脚手架上意外坠落，两年后因伤势过重离世。命运的残酷未能让他继续沿着这条充满希望的创作之路前行。他的杰出作品承袭洛伦佐·巴托利尼（Lorenzo Bartolini）精湛的艺术语汇，即便以古典范式为创作基底，其对真实的细致入微的剖析，本可催生出别具一格的风格面貌。而要全面领会这位艺术家的创作语言，莫过于鉴赏他1840年的作品《爱与忠贞》（Love and Fidelity），该作品现收藏于佛罗伦萨皮蒂宫现代艺术美术馆（Modern Art Gallery of Palazzo Pitti）。作品中，孩童是“爱”的化身，他端坐于虚构的树干之上，回首望向以脚边一只死犬所具象化的“忠贞”，眼中噙着强忍的泪水。盛满箭矢的箭筒被弃置一旁，爱已无法再射出那难以预料的爱之箭。尽管冰冷的大理石中流淌出温暖又亲昵的情愫，让神话角色的人类苦痛变得真切可感——这一角色在目睹具象化的“忠贞”，即那只在生命最后一刻将头枕在孩童脚边的犬只时面露痛苦，渴求通过这最后一次肢体接触，寻得一处避风港，借以思索生命强加于我们所有人的命题——时，作品的阿那克里翁式主题，以及人物的结构与造型建构，均未脱离新古典主义诗学的准则。