Page 37 - Studio International - April 1965

the exquisite bronze box richly decorated with small
pears, damask roses, fragments of plants and figurines,
and with its lid which can be opened or closed to give
different effects; or the other chest—a coffin hidden
among metallic fruits and flowers with its macabre yet
lyrical contents : two representations of female hands
and some apples of shining smoothness.
A further distinctive feature of these sculptures is that
they must be viewed as a whole and not as isolated
works. The individual work loses much of its meaning-
ful reality when considered separately instead of in the
context of the other sculptures (of course this does
not mean that we cannot appreciate the merits of an
individual work from the point of view of plastic quality,
technique and composition.) But it is a fact that many
of these works only assume their real value and signifi-
cance when viewed as a group, indeed a large group.
Then the dry roses, the dwarf trees, the floral land-
scapes, the apples and the pears alternating with
material reminiscent of shrouds, take on a full and richly
varied life of their own—they are transformed into
sacred groves and magic landscapes, succulent or
funereal 'trophies' against a grey background which
extends like a veil of years over their fragile existence.
Perhaps some people will have the impression that cer-
tain of these works (above all some of the representa-
tions of apples and roses) are 'ready-made' objects, or
rather 'ready-made imitations'; in my opinion it would
be more appropriate in this case to speak of 'ready
deads'—dead objets trouves, of organic objects (such
as flowers or fruits) which have suffered the ravages of
time; they have lost their organic nature and as a
result become 'ready-made'.
The 'ravages of time' have indeed scattered the sub-
jects of Cavaliere's sculptures like the dust and ashes of
memory; his subjects are apparently natural and yet they
are also essentially of the imagination, they have become
symbols of a reality which cannot be altered ordestroyed.
For while we may pull away and crush between our
fingers the petals of a living rose, the bronze replica of
the rose cannot so easily be reduced to nothing. n