Page 27 - Studio International - January 1966

'To live is to defend a form' Hölderlin
One day Giacomo Manzú will be acclaimed as one of Hölderlin's view is the hall-mark of Greek art. It is
the masters of absolute art in our age. Where others, the unity of artistic means by which the work comes
even the most famous, have gone astray, relying on into existence and by which it makes its impact.
their powers of deliberation to cross the turbulent Let us venture into the field of music. Although it was
waves created by their attempts to conjure up some- Schoenberg who invented a new musical form, Anton
thing entirely new and radically different from the past Webern was the composer who, needing it as a
as reflected in Europe's cultural history, Manzú has catalyst for his creative powers, produced the purer
relied exclusively on the powers that come from art. Similarly, although it was Picasso who is acknow-
within, on the wholeness of mind and soul, of feeling ledged as the radical innovator of art, Manzú was one
and form, of content, technique and doing. He has of the very few who have saved human content and
aimed at balance of spirit, matter and expression, again dignity from all the distortions of dissection, paraphrase
and again returning to it when he had temporarily and persiflage. By virtue of this, although only a
lost it, and his only anxiety as an artist was to be able handful of people are aware of it, he can be considered
to find the form for the changing human content which one of the cornerstones of a new human art. For what
filled his soul at various times of his life—the agonies, is absolute art but art which conveys a complete
the doubts, the joys, and the crowning privilege— congruence of form and meaning ? And what other
creation. This is his secret. It happens before our eyes, art than the absolute has a veritable raison d'être?
for it is unmistakable in his works. It is registered there Opus 23 of Anton Webern distils beauty into form
with the honesty of a seismograph recording the in such an overwhelmingly quiet and crystalline manner
slightest tremor of the earth's crust or an electro- that the whole universe seems to be condensed in its
cardiogram revealing the irregularities of the heart beat. three songs----love and nature and God, nostalgia and
But how many could diagnose its true meaning ? mystery, human resignation and divine fulfilment. This
In his notes on the translation of Oedipus, Hölderlin is presented in one mood throughout—not, as with
wrote: 'Compared with those of the Greeks, other Beethoven, by way of violent baroque changes, but
works of art lack reliability, or at least one might say cast in one, a pianissimo expressivo as it has been
that they have been judged hitherto more through the called. And how true it is ! What else can we hear of
impressions they make than from the point of view of the soul in a time filled by such intensive noise as ours,
calculations that obey laws or the other ways of by its loud advertising mania, except the pianissimo?
producing the beautiful.' Let us say here that Manzú Rilke spoke of 'der Rausch des Leisen', the Intoxication
considers The Fates by Phidias, from the tympanum of of Stillness. As in the work of Webern, there is a
* British Museum, London the Acropolis, as the greatest work of sculpture.* universe in what may be considered the most
In Manzú's own work something miraculous has sophisticated and at the same time most veracious
happened for modern art. Here is an artist who has work of sculpture of our day, created by a spirit which
struggled for decades to discover in the end that the is lyrical and yet relates drama and tragedy to faith
only compass, the only measuring rod by which to and fate, confronting reality and truth with great inner
measure the veracity of his art, the only guarantee for courage. Here too one basic state of mind prevails—
the message it has to convey, is his own heart. Behind the poetical approach.
Below left this is hidden an artistic discipline of extraordinary Standing in front of Manzú's Door of Death in St.
Detail from the panel Peter's Church in the Vatican City, so called because
depicting the death of Mary rigidity, fierce encounters with his own conscience,
ceaseless attempts to reach the simplest and most the front of it depicts the various ways of death and
Details from the lower panels—
Centre direct form to express his experiences as both man and dying, and symbols of death—an owl, a dormouse, a
The death of Pope John XXIII artist. In the case of Manzú man and the artist are one. raven, a tortoise with a snake, a hedgehog and a dead
Right
Death on earth In his work he achieves that 'reliability' which in bird—as well as the symbols of the Eucharist (wine