Two Sculptors
Giacomo MANZU, who is holding an exhibition at the Hanover Gallery, is known here best, perhaps, for his mitred Cardinals imprisoned in robes which hang from their necks like oast- house cowls, and for his life-size figure of a young girl seated on a chair. These represent both the least satisfactory and the finest expression of his art. The Cardinals are picturesque—their conical form has an inherent attractiveness — and sculpturally fragile to the point of weakness. If we arc tempted to wonder whether the physical form beneath the clothing is fat or scraggy, such curiosity is not invoked by any plastic evidence. In some respects these figures are related to those pictures of jolly, carousing clerics which Mr. Raymond Mortimer and others continue to enjoy.
The young girl, however, is one of the best realistic sculptures of recent years—and this is real realism. The modelling of every part of the body, from head to foot, is wonder- fully penetrating, sensitive and apt, the expres- sion of the gentle tensions of an immature body miraculously right. As a sculptural composition, it is convincing within the terms of its realism and also, in abstract terms, excit- ing and tenderly precise. It is significant and indicative, however, that Manzu should have succeeded so triumphantly with an immature body, one which is not yet the vehicle of Powerful and experienced feeling and which is therefore not yet able to express the com- plexity of bodily tension dependent upon age and stress. When he concerns himself with adult figures they show the same immaturity. Their reticence is not just a matter of a with- held force within the artist; to that extent they are Peter Pans lacking truly adult virility.
Would it be fanciful to compare his art with that of Alain-Fournier? Several of the works in the exhibition are of dancers,. and in spite of their realism they do not, like the Degas bronzes, show a human creature in- volved in the particular professional move- ment, but arc rather spirits of the dance. All this is to suggest that Manzu is not a very searching sculptor, though he is an artist of exceptional taste, sensibility and technical accomplishment. He is not, indeed, so con- siderable a figure as his fellow-countryman, Marini, though like Marini's his work makes constant reference to historical associations and discovers archaic surfaces—one of his drawings is made on an old piece of paper. In this respect at least I find Manzu's borrowing and technical tricks the more tactful.
Sir Jacob Epstein's figure of General Smuts lately unveiled in Parliament Square offers, as one might guess, no easy solution to the Problem of memorial sculpture. This very serious attempt to epitomise the subject's achievement as well as record his appearance seems to me a fine conception unsuccessfully embodied. A creature is most near to fall and disaster when it is most dynamic, and the energy of this forward-leaning figure seems precarious and unresolved. Is Sir Jacob per- haps at his best when he is matched with the present, living model, when the strork involves a battle with a person and not simply a
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