Medardo Rosso

Medardo Rosso , 1858-1928, Italian sculptor. A painter until 1883, he turned to sculpture and worked periodically in Paris but lived mainly in Milan. He was a friend of Degas and Rodin, but he quarreled with the latter in 1898 about which of them had introduced impressionism into sculpture. Rosso showed brilliance in his ability to capture the play of light on a surface. He preferred to work in wax, since the material lends itself to effects of suppleness and fluidity. A characteristic portrait is his Bimbo ebreo (Univ. of Nebraska). In Barzio the Rosso Museum houses much of his work.

Rosso, Medardo (b Turin, 21 June 1858; d Milan, 31 Mar. 1928). Italian sculptor. He was virtually self-taught, for he was dismissed from the Brera Academy in Milan in 1883 after only a few months' training when he appealed for drawing to be taught from the nude model rather than casts of statues. In 1884 he first visited Paris, and he lived there from 1889 to 1897, the period of his most intense creative activity. It is indeed with French rather than Italian art that his work has affinity, for he created a sculptural equivalent of Impressionism, depicting everyday subjects and capturing a feeling of movement, atmosphere, and transitory effects of light. His favourite medium was wax, which he used with great subtlety to express his view that matter was malleable by atmosphere: ‘We are mere consequences of the objects which surround us.’ His subjects included portraits and single figures and groups in contemporary settings (The Bookmaker, 1894, MoMA, New York; Conversation in a Garden, 1893, Gal. Naz. d'Arte Contemporanea, Rome). In his early days in Paris Rosso struggled to earn a living (he made funerary monuments for his basic income), but his career blossomed in the 1890s, partly because of the patronage of Henri Rouart (a wealthy industrialist and friend of Degas), who helped Rosso find clients as well as purchasing works himself. Rodin, too, tried to help him, but Rosso was suspicious of him and thought he was trying to steal his ideas (it has been suggested that the ‘Impressionistic’ handling of Rodin's celebrated Balzac monument is indebted to Rosso).

In 1897 Rosso returned to Italy and thereafter made almost no new sculpture, devoting his time instead to organizing exhibitions of his work throughout Europe. Through these his work became extremely well known, and after Rodin's death in 1917, Apollinaire spoke for many when he described him as ‘beyond doubt the greatest living sculptor’. His reputation remains high and he is considered one of the most original artists of his time (not even Rodin challenged so decisively the traditional preoccupations of sculpture). He was particularly influential on the Futurists, who took over and developed many of his ideas. Rosso's output was fairly small; replicas of several of his works and a collection of his drawings are in the Museo Medardo Rosso at Barzio in Italy.

Rosso, Medardo (1858–1928). Italian sculptor. He was virtually self-taught, for he was dismissed from the Brera Academy in Milan in 1883 after only a few months' training when he appealed for drawing to be taught from the nude model rather than casts of statues. In 1884 he first visited Paris, and he lived there from 1889 to 1897, the period of his most intense creative activity. It is indeed with French rather than Italian art that his work has affinity, for he created a sculptural equivalent of Impressionism, depicting everyday subjects and capturing a feeling of movement, atmosphere, and transitory effects of light. His favourite medium was wax, which he used with great subtlety to express his view that matter was malleable by atmosphere: ‘We are mere consequences of the objects which surround us.’ His subjects included portraits and single figures and groups in contemporary settings (The Bookmaker, 1894, MoMA, New York; Conversation in a Garden, 1893, Gal. Naz. d'Arte Contemporanea, Rome). In his early days in Paris Rosso struggled to earn a living (he made funerary monuments for his basic income), but his career blossomed in the 1890s, partly because of the patronage of Henri Rouart (a wealthy industrialist and friend of Degas), who helped Rosso find clients as well as purchasing works himself. Rodin, too, tried to help him, but Rosso was suspicious of him and thought he was trying to steal his ideas (it has been suggested that the ‘Impressionistic’ handling of Rodin's celebrated Balzac monument is indebted to Rosso). In 1897 Rosso returned to Italy and thereafter made almost no new sculpture, devoting his time instead to organizing exhibitions of his work throughout Europe. Through these his work became extremely well known, and after Rodin's death in 1917, Apollinaire spoke for many when he described him as ‘beyond doubt the greatest living sculptor’. His reputation remains high and he is considered one of the most original artists of his time (not even Rodin challenged so decisively the traditional preoccupations of sculpture). He was particularly influential on the Futurists, who took over and developed many of his ideas. Rosso's output was fairly small; replicas of several of his works and a collection of his drawings are in the Museo Medardo Rosso at Barzio in Italy.