Giovanni Duprè

Giovanni Duprè ( born March 1, 1817 in Siena, † January 10, 1882 in Florence ) was an Italian sculptor and medalist.

Life

Born to Siena, the son of a woodcutter, located in Florence Duprè devoted to sculpture and won in 1842 with a sculpture of Abel ( bronze casting in the Palazzo Pitti ) the first success. In 1845 he modeled as a counterpart to Cain, who also came as a counterpart to the Palazzo Pitti. In the following years the marble figures Giotto and Sant ' Antonio created for the Uffizi and Pius II for San Domenico in Siena. On a trip to Naples, saw Duprè 1856 in Rome, the monument of Pius VI. by Canova, which gave its pursuit a different direction. The same led him to an allegorical conception which was not just the harmony of his works conducive. The first of these was a Sappho sitting with zersprungener lyre in a melancholy reflection on a rock.

1859 completed Duprè the large grave monument of the Countess Ferrari Corbelli of San Lorenzo in Florence. Architecture and overall design are inharmonious; to the allegorical figures are individual careful studies of nature to praise, but the parting of the conventional treatment of other parts. Another major work from this period is the relief in the lunette of the main portal of Santa Croce in Florence, representing the Triumph of the Cross. Historical figures from all centuries of Christianity are grouped here by lying in the middle of the genius of humanity.

One of the noblest and richest sentient plants Dupre counts his Pietà, which he completed in 1860-1865 by order of the Marquis Ruspoli for the cemetery of the Misericordia in Siena, and in his art fine naturalistic Through education reached its peak.

Dupré's most extensive work is the 1872 Monument unveiled Camillo Benso di Cavour in Turin. Ten allegorical colossal figures surround the pedestal on which Cavour, Italia uplifting, stands. At the most naked allegorical figures serious study of nature and the pursuit of monumental dignity to notice; only disturb even here some hardening of the composition and the inharmonious marriage of realism and allegory. Dreamy melancholy that goes here and there in rigidity of expression that characterizes the majority of his works; the artist has often the human figure too much treated as allegorical wearer abstract philosophical, political or religious ideas instead of seeking the role of art in the representation of human beauty and human character.

Duprè also led numerous medals in clay and bronze, including 1873 by Rudolf Virchow, and was active as a writer ( memoir Pensieri sull'arte e ricordi autobiografici ).