Page 37 - Studio International - May 1966

The stone of love and its to work, shows his desire to defeat the ephemeral nature enjoyment, as the salt of life, continues to exist in the
genetic principle of experience. His struggle is with a certain concept of midst of horror.
Green hard stone
Height 431 in. Length 59 in. time, to which he contrasts faith in the slow elaboration War, one of the most abstract of Giansone's composi-
of a work of art in space, and Atomic aircraft carrier and tions, is a dynamic representation of an unbroken se-
Fiat KG 101 in flight have the same value as symbolic quence of forms in conflict. The human journey of the
Egyptian representations in the same hard porphyry. sculptor is expressed in the labyrinthine sheet of bronze
`Modern' life has changed many times in the course of which concludes a series of compositions based on a
our existence. Giansone's aeroplane is certainly more up- modular pattern. It is a silent journey through space
to-date than the Wright brothers' biplane of the Douanier which assumes its true dimension only through the exis-
Rousseau's painting—but it is the symbol which is im- tence of plastic 'facts' created after the model of the gene-
portant. Provided artistic values are equal, the signifi- tic development of a vital, biological fact.
cance of our technical civilization is in no way different Giansone charges forms and symbols with his own con-
to that of more ancient civilizations. cept of the essence of life, his own impulses, his own ideas,
Giansone's artistic 'engagement', concerned as he is with either evident or hermetic. His sculptured works reflect
demonstrating the validity of principles and methods, is a life lived in solitude and enjoying isolation on the
not abstract, sustained outside society in total rejection. frontiers of obsession. Everything seems to develop ac-
His engagement is based rather on a consciousness of cording to the laws of an organic process; but everything
the drama implicit in the destructive power of man's happens within the artist in silence or in the cry of revolt.
technical inventions. But his concern with this dramatic He cannot escape from the bonds which link him, wil-
element goes hand in hand with an obsession with rhythm, lingly or unwillingly, to a destiny projected beyond the
expressed in dynamic movement. And the principle of bounds of the present.
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