ITALIAN STATUARY FROM THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19th CENTURY TO THE FIRST
TWENTY YEARS OF THE 20th CENTURY IN MONTEVIDEO
The research examines the incredibly large quantity of Italian sculpture in the capital city of Uruguay. The two temporal terms define two precise chronological moments: from the second half of the 19th century in fact, a group of Italian painters first, and sculptors in a second moment, settle in Montevideo. The Twenties bring cultural change for Uruguay, due to a direct kwnoledge of European models. During this period, Montevideo knew monumental and architectonic decoration strictly connected to Italian skilled workers. Some of them were sculptors searching for more fortune on the other side of the world, others were mediators from the Italian art-laboratories, thus importing a great quantity of cemeterial sculptures. They have also imported masterpieces of 19th century Italian art, such as the "Minatore" by Enrico Butti, the "Olocausto" and the "Monumento al Lavoro" by Leonardo Bistolfi and a bust of Giuseppe Garibaldi by Vincenzo Vela. Since the 1910's Uruguay was also involved in international competitions. Two of these competitions were won by Italian artists: General Artigas’ monument by Angelo Zanelli and the Palazzo Legislativo, that was completed by Gaetano Moretti, who taught at the University of Montevideo during this period. I've compared the Italian items with the Uruguayan ones taken from the available bibliography and from the newspapers of that period. I've also researched the Montevideo archives, so that I was able to understand the social and cultural reasons that brought two generations of artists to work in South America and, above all, to account for the constant demand for Italian works of art. I was able to outline the main processes of this demand and in some cases I had to completely reconstruct the lives and careers of these artists. The research is in the form of a scientific catalogue with a lot of unpublished news and photos which documents the vast patrimony kept in Montevideo. It has been also important to acquire a view of the mutual influence on local painting, literature and culture in general. So at the end of my research, I can conclude that in Montevideo there are approximately 150 pieces of Italian sculpture which are proof of the "cultural relationship" that has affected the history of Uruguay for almost 30 years.