The Museo Vincenzo Vela in Ligornetto

Vincenzo Vela (1820–1891): A Ticinese Sculptor in the Service of the Risorgimento

The Roman numerals in bold indicate the number of the exhibition room. Please see the floorplan of the ground floor on the back cover flap inside for orientation.

A child prodigy

Vincenzo Vela was born in Ligornetto on 3 May 1820 to Giuseppe Vela, a small-holder, and his wife Teresa, née Casanova. At the age of nine he was apprenticed as a stonecutter in the Besazio quarries, from the outset displaying a gift for craftsmanship. His elder brother Lorenzo, also a sculptor, recognized his talent and took Vincenzo with him to Milan, where he worked as a stonecutter on the Cathedral site while also studying at the Brera Fine Art Academy, and the Scuola d’Ornato (School of Decoration) in particular. Influenced by Francesco Hayez’ painting and the work of the Tuscan sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini, the young Vela’s style took on a marked realism, in contrast to the dry classicism of Canova’s followers. An extremely gifted student, he won many competitions and soon became the spokesman for the hopes of the new generations. In 1842, after winning a gold medal in Venice, he completed his studies and set up on his own.

Early recognition in Milan

Enrico Gamba, Portrait of Vincenzo Vela, c. 1857, colour pastels on paper.

Immediately after Vela’s first commission, the Monument to Giuseppe Maria Luvini, Bishop of Pesaro (VIII) for the new city hall in Lugano, which won him major recognition at the Brera exhibition of 1844, Vela completed sepulchres for Maddalena Adami-Bozzi in Pavia and Cecilia Rusca in Locarno (c. 1845–1846, XX). The two sculptural groups he created were innovative in Italian funerary art: for the first time mourning figures, usually depicted as allegorical characters, were represented with touching immediacy, portrayed with the faces of the deceased’s family, and dressed in everyday clothes.

Although this genre was a key feature of Vela’s art from this moment on, he nonetheless explored more ‘worldly‘ themes and genres, including the portrait. In fact, in 1846 he executed for Duke Giulio Litta The Morning Prayer (XXI), a genre sculpture in which the religious theme is simply a pretext. Many considered the kneeling figure of the young woman in a nightdress to be a masterpiece due to its realism. However, a suspicion soon spread among critics that the sculptor had used plaster casts of the model and even of the fabric – which in fact he had – to make the piece, thus ignoring academic rules. Yet, with its incomparable naturalism that plays on pictorial values, the finely rendered physiognomy, and soft modelling – which, combined with the narrative element, evoke the figures in a waxworks – the piece melds tried and tested compositional models and early painting traditions with contemporary content. Thus, Vela’s work immediately met the taste of an influential elite, composed of liberal exponents of the Lombard nobility and the nascent upper middle class, whose common goal was to courageously resist the occupying power: the Austrian Monarchy that had governed since the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Vela’s art, whose vigorous style challenged the obligations and practices of the old school, soon became the cultural manifesto of the Milanese. The rising star was courted by men of letters and patrons, who had long awaited his arrival.

Vincenzo Vela, Monument to Giuseppe Maria Luvini, Bishop of Pesaro, 1844, plaster cast of Vincenzo Vela’s statue in Lugano 1895.

Vincenzo Vela, Morning Prayer, 1846, plaster original, three perspectives.

Spartacus, hero of the oppressed

Thanks to a colossal sculpture commissioned by the collector Duke Antonio Litta, in 1847 Vela received a grant that enabled him to work in Rome. He had just begun to design the model for this figure, Spartacus, when he decided to fight in the Sonderbund War, siding with General Guillaume-Henri Dufour (portrayed in 1849, II), and in March 1848, participated as a volunteer in the War of Independence fought by the Lombards against Austria, which ended with much blood spilled. On this occasion, the staunch republican earned the friendship and respect of the Milanese as well as the reputation of being a politically engaged artist and patriot.

His marble colossus, sculpted in winter 1849–1850, arrived on cue to mark the definitive demise of the formal canons of classicism (VII, see ill. p. 8). The heroic slave who breaks his chains to die a free man became the symbol of the national uprising. Thus, Vela’s ‘verism‘ championed Italian unification and roused the people – as did the operas of Giuseppe Verdi.

Turin, Italy’s hope

Vela the revolutionary soon became a thorn in the side of the occupying power. When, in 1852, he refused the offer of an academic chair, which was intended to keep sympathizers of the opposition in their place, he had to take refuge in his own country, where he established friendships with many refugees. A few months later he emigrated to the free and liberal city of Turin, the hub of the Risorgimento. There he was able to count on new commissions and his influence began to be felt abroad.

Success soon followed: he made his name not only through numerous public and private sculpture commissions, but also his work as a professor at the Accademia Albertina, a position conferred on him in 1856 by King Vittorio Emanuele II. In the course of the next fourteen years he had the rare opportunity to spread his style, and in a relatively minor artistic milieu his art became an undisputed model. Based in the city that had the most political clout in the Italian peninsula, Vela had a profound and lasting influence on monumental sculpture throughout the country. In a short space of time verism came to be seen as the quintessence of Italian style, at home and abroad. The first works Vela executed in Turin were portraits, interpreted with psychological finesse, and numerous funerary monuments, mainly in the form of personifications in modern dress (Hope, Desolation, Doleful Harmony, Our Lady of Sorrows). Drawing inspiration from historic models, he came up with solutions that were as modern as they were astonishing, the archetype being the family chapel of the Counts d’Adda at Arcore, in which are represented Maria Isimbardi d’Adda on her deathbed (1851–1852) and Our Lady of Sorrows with Christ’s crown of thorns (1851–1853, XX).

Politics on a pedestal

1856 saw the solemn inauguration of the Monument commemorating Cesare Balbo, the first ever executed for a citizen of Turin. The statesman of noble birth is portrayed seated, in a pose that is not at all aristocratic: Vela has ‘fixed‘ the moment photographically, precisely at a time when photography was becoming an established medium, capturing the sitter in a typical position. Not only was this the first of an important group of works, it also gave rise to an actual cult of monuments, which began in France (where it was known as statuomanie) and spread to the whole of Europe in the name of democratization. Squares and public spaces were no longer to be embellished solely with statues honouring princes and saints, but also with those dedicated to the contemporary heroes striving for Italian unification. Politicians and generals, but also philosophers, scientists and benefactors, physicians, industrialists, teachers, artists, poets and adventurers were immortalized in marble and placed on a pedestal as models of modern society. By establishing a dialogue with the new commissioners – mainly committees for monuments that had sprung up, which administered a fund created through subscriptions – Vela and his statues actively and symbolically illustrated the idea of a liberal, middle-class national state, which was still a vague, abstract notion for many.

Vincenzo Vela, Spartacus, 1847–1849, plaster original.

Vincenzo Vela, Portrait of Giovanni d’Adda, 1859, plaster original.

Vincenzo Vela, Portrait of Ballerina Amina Boschetti of Milan, c. 1853, plaster original.

Works by the master were soon followed by those of his pupils and his competitors. In the second half of the century, as many as fifty monuments were erected in Turin alone. It was a unique period, a golden era for sculptors, during which art and politics entered into strict symbiosis. This is exemplified by Vela’s Flag-Bearer (1857–1859, I, ill. p. 11, plinth relief see ill. p. 48) located in Piazza Castello, opposite Palazzo Madama, which actually functions as a manifesto. Donated by Milanese exiles to express their thanks to the Sardinian army for their assistance in 1848 during the first campaign against Austria, in 1859 the newly-inaugurated monument spurred the army that was once again marching against the enemy to unite Italy. Meanwhile, in Lombardy, the adversaries swore that the Flag-Bearer would be the first statue to be knocked off its pedestal when they entered the Piedmont capital.

International exhibitions and triumphs

The fame of the Swiss artist who had chosen to serve the Risorgimento spread abroad. Undoubtedly, this also served Cavour’s diplomatic interests. Vela became one of the new ‘Salon artists‘: his career no longer relied solely on commissions but was also driven by his skilfully managed participation in public exhibitions. Thus Italy Grateful to France (I), a supremely eloquent allegory exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1863 and commissioned by a group of Milanese noblewomen as a symbolic gift for Empress Eugénie of France, earned him the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. The sculptor was also asked to portray Christopher Columbus for Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, the same year that Edouard Manet caused a scandal with Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe! The sculpture entitled The Last Moments of Napoleon I (1866, II, today in Versailles), a reflection on the rise and fall of the powerful with an intense emotional impact, also caused a sensation at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867. Vela was awarded a first-class gold medal and promoted to Officier de la Légion d’honneur, while the work itself was purchased for a considerable sum by Napoleon III, nephew of the Emperor, who installed it opposite Sappho (1852), the statue of the Greek poetess executed by James Pradier, in the Palais de Saint-Cloud.

Managing studios and creating an art industry

Inundated with commissions, Vela had to adapt his productive capacities to the growing demand, which meant running three studios contemporaneously and employing many assistants and specialized pupils. The sculpture workshop rapidly became a profitable art factory with skilled workers, although the quality of the pieces sometimes suffered. He continued to execute small-scale models personally for use in negotiations with clients, but after casting the life-size clay models in plaster he left to his assistants the challenging task of transposing the model into marble and the polishing of the finished sculpture. He supervised the development of projects as creator, organizer and businessman, doing the manual work himself when it was a question of producing the much-admired surface effects: the public was easily won by his technical virtuosity.

Vincenzo Vela, The Flag-Bearer: Monument to the Sardinian Army, 1857–1859, plaster original.

Vincenzo Vela, Italy Grateful to France, A Gift from Milanese Ladies to the Empress Eugénie, 1861–1862, plaster original.

A conspiracy?

However, success did not enable him to understand that the political climate in his adopted country had changed: Vela’s being the favourite in the 1863 competition in Turin to execute a Monument to Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (IV) gave rise to a murky conspiracy, which ended with the sculptor’s abruptly abandoning the chair at the Academy. Being Swiss, after the unification of Italy he was made a foreigner who had to compete with local artists. In 1867, at the age of forty-seven, he bitterly withdrew to the place he had grown up in, where he had built a summer residence with a view to its becoming a museum for his work. However, he continued to be unanimously considered the founder of Italian verism: his admirers called him the ‘Cavour of art‘ (Carlo Pisani, 1870) and the ‘Ligornetto Phidias‘. During the last thirty years of his life he continued to work apace, accepting commissions for portraits and funerary monuments, and not unfrequently for representations of popular themes. Even when elderly, he could not resist projects of vast scope.

Aborted commissions

In 1873, Charles II, Duke of Brunswick, died in exile in Geneva. As an eminent Swiss sculptor, Vela was commissioned by the duke’s executors to create a Neo-Gothic mausoleum and, together with his friend, the Ticino architect Antonio Croci, he designed a model on the lines of the Scaliger Tombs in Verona (IV). Work on the two life-size statues in plaster and the monumental Equestrian Statue (I) were well underway when the two lawyers who had commissioned the piece requested some unwarranted changes, which turned out to be a mere pretext. Once again, Vela was the victim of shady machinations and, feeling that his creative freedom had been curbed, he rescinded the contract. The work, whose imposing scale would have made it a crowning achievement of his career, was completed in a relatively short time by other sculptors supervised by the architect Jean Franel and was unveiled on the Quai du Mont-Blanc in Geneva in 1879.

Unknown, Vincenzo Vela and His Coworkers (Turin), 1855–1860 (1938), salt print based on the original photography.

Vincenzo Vela, Bozzetto of the Monument to Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (first version), 1863, terracotta and patinated plaster.

Vincenzo Vela, The Victims of Labour, 1882, plaster original.

The Victims of Labour

Although disillusioned and in bad health, Vela devoted himself to domestic politics. In 1877 he was elected to the radical group of the Grand Council of Ticino, where he campaigned strenuously in favour of the weak. Besides, he himself was an example of social emancipation: the son of farmers, he had risen to become a prince among artists, without ever hiding his humble origins.

His solidarity with the oppressed was conveyed in a late work, the manifesto of his ideals. Having been financially independent for some time, he could afford to realize his long-nurtured desire to design a monument to the unknown who had died during the construction of the St Gotthard tunnel, The Victims of Labour (VII). In the history of art, this magnificent high relief is an unparalleled emblem of the industrial age. The plaster original – a posthumous version in bronze was ordered by the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Rome while another copy was unveiled at the railway station of Airolo in 1932 – shows the miners consumed by fatigue as they carry away on a stretcher a dead co-worker, whose face is unmistakably that of the artist. This secular version of the Deposition, modelled with superlative technique, is the first ever monument dedicated to workers: a tribute to a class who previously had only had the honour of decorating, as underlings, the pedestals of monuments. This social realist model, which found its equivalent in the paintings of Gustave Courbet, was the main attraction at the first Swiss National Exposition in Zurich in 1883. Yet again Vela’s art became the means of presenting political issues – in this case those concerning the nascent workers’ movement – to a wide public.

Late works and legacy

In 1888–1889 Vela executed his last public work: the Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Como Days Uprising of March 1848 (I), commissioned by the city of Como. This nearly four metres high full-length statue is certainly one of the most imposing portraits of the general (1807–1882). The intense figure is filled with pent-up energy. Dressed in a poncho and holding an unsheathed sword in his right hand, Garibaldi has a daunting, almost ferocious look. His expression and pose reflect not only the inner fire of a freedom fighter, but also his disappointment over the suspect political developments in a recently unified Italy.

Bronze was the most suitable material for representing so formidable a figure. Vela had already developed an expressiveness in modelling to suit the material, as can be seen in Funerary Monument to Maria Demartini Scala (1879–1882, VI) and Monument to Agostino Bertani (1887, VII) in Milan, drawing on the experience gained in his reliefs. The figure of Garibaldi has a sketchy quality, to the extent of directly referencing the innovations of the young Medardo Rosso and the Italian Impressionists, namely the Scapigliati and Macchiaioli.

Today

Much of 19th century sculpture is difficult to view. Apart from the works of leading exponents like Canova and Rodin, those of other sculptors – even the once famous – are stowed away in museum storerooms. The grandiose mausoleums in cemeteries are falling to pieces, while the sad monuments still standing in squares have become annoying obstacles to traffic, when they have not actually been moved to an out-of-the-way site or disposed of with the garbage.

Vincenzo Vela, Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Como Days, 1888–1889, plaster original.

Vincenzo Vela, The Surrender of the San Francesco Barracks, a relief on the base of the Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Como Days, 1889, plaster original.