UMBERTO MASTROIANNI

Umberto Mastoianni

THE SCULPTURE

I search for the vertebrae

the navel of my statue born alive

from my obsession

…

Such do the sculptures

born dead

spoilt by the spell

of mad memories of lost time

appear to me.

Today the reappearance

of a form is almost legend.

Today the rebirth

of a form can lift to the top

the becoming of a pure

original thought

landed on this tired earth.

Peace monument in Cassino

He was born in Fontana Liri in 1910 and his parents were from Arpino. He died in 1998. His love for his art is represented by this poem written by the artist himself. His forms are free and natural, they are a real explosion. Many of his sculptures express, in an abstract way, the human emotions connected to important moments of our history. He uses bronze, iron, coloured steel to represent the second world war, the invasion, the Resistance, the wish for peace. Mastroianni has been considered the sculptor of Resistance, the partisan battle against nazi – fascism, but his works are not simply celebrative because they exalt, in particular, the life and passions of the people. In Frosinone there is one of his sculptures in steel, the War Memorial that represents all the false ideologies that have always crushed man.

Federico Di Folco II C