Leonardo Bistolfi

Leonardo Bistolfi (14 March 1859 – 2 September 1933) was an Italian

Bistolfi was born in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, north-west Italy, to Giovanni Bistolfi, a sculptor in wood, and to Angela Amisano. Giovanni died at the age of 26 years when Leonardo was still a boy.^[2]

In 1876 he enrolled in the

His first works, executed between 1880 and 1885, show the influence of the Milanese Scapigliatura movement. These first works include Le lavandaie (The Washerwomen), Tramonto (Sunset), Vespero ('Evening'), Boaro (Cattle-hand), Gli amanti (The Lovers). The work of Gli Amanti was rejected from a Turin Promotrice circa 1880, bringing him either notoriety or fame.^[4]

In 1882 he sculpted L'Angelo della morte ('The Angel of Death') for the Brayda tomb in the Turin cemetery known as the Cimitero Monumentale di Torino. He produced a number of prominent works as

In 1892 he began a two-year task of decorating Chapel XVI of the Sacro Monte di Crea, one of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.

In 1893 he married Maria Gusberti.

Also during the years 1892–1908, Bistolfi executed numerous funerary monuments (statues and bas-reliefs), including the memorial plaque for André Gladis.

In 1902, along with Davide Calandra, Giorgio Ceragioli, Enrico Reycend and Enrico Thovez, he founded the magazine L'arte decorativa moderna ('Modern Decorative Art'). Between 1895 and 1905 he displayed works at a number of Venice Biennale exhibitions.

In 1906 he produced a monument to the painter Giovanni Segantini La bellezza liberata dalla materia ('Beauty liberated from matter') known also as L'alpe ('the Alp'), which is conserved at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome. For the

In 1921, his Monument to Antonio Fontanesi was erected in the Parco del Populo in Reggio Emilia.

In 1923 he was made a Senatore del Regno (Senator of the Kingdom).

In 1928 Bistolfi produced the Monumento ai Caduti (war memorial) for Casale Monferrato.

Bistolfi died at La Loggia, in the province of Turin, on 2 September 1933. He was interred in the cemetery of Casale Monferrato.

His work is exhibited at La Loggia, at the

Sculpture by Bistolfi is also to be found in the Cimitero monumentale di Staglieno of Genoa, a town where his influence was seen in the work of a number of sculptors, particularly those specializing in funerary art.

References

• The initial version of this article was based on a translation of its equivalent on the Italian Wikipedia, as retrieved on 2007-02-27.

• hdl:2027/yale.39002052242790
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leonardo Bistolfi.

• Biografia di Leonardo Bistolfi (in Italian), from the site of the Comune di La Loggia.
• Site of the Gipsoteca “Leonardo Bistolfi” (in Italian)
• "Leonardo Bistolfi" (in Italian). La Scultura Italiana. Archived from the original on 31 December 2006.