Bronze Sculpture, By Francesco Barbera Known As Sandrún, "beethoven," 1900s Era

Bronze sculpture, by Francesco Barbera known as Sandrún, "Beethoven," 1900s era

Splendid and imposing bronze sculpture depicting one of the greatest exponents of classical music Beethoven.

Beethoven (undated).
Bronze, 55×106x42 cm.
Very good condition
Sandrún's Michelangeloism is evident in this powerful interpretation of the great Viennese musician, seen as a Homeric hero. The anatomical perfection, strained in the effort of artistic creativity, seems to focus on the contracted features of the face. The open mouth, the intense gaze, the medusa-like hair: everything tells us about an exceptional man, superhuman and above all - because of his lyrical and beautiful nudity - true in the Sandronian sense of the term.

Measurements: 55×106x42 cm.

Biography
Franceschino Barbera was born in Sordevolo on March 10, 1927. He is known as Sandrún (Sandrone), the battle name he had assumed during the partisan war and with which he will sign almost all his works.
[...] At the end of the war he began his artistic adventure as a self-taught artist. 
Turin Futurism makes its appearance in the Biella area with the creation of the Civic Museum of Biella: local exponents are Nicola Mosso, Franco Costa, and Luigi Pralavorio. It, however, encounters the predictable hostility of an environment in which tradition continues to have a weight that must be reckoned with. "Sandrún" breathes this "air" at the foot of his lungs, but he will continue to follow his own path, overcoming all the pressures of colleagues who would like to "school" him and bend him to the canons of the dominant taste. Of course he will make the monument to the partisans, he will allow the terracotta multiplication of Lenin's face, he will model Stalin of unusual proportions, but he will always remain stubbornly anchored in the severe French nineteenth-century sculptural tradition, made up of "hatchet strokes," of strong, "heroic," dynamic lines and, nevertheless, not devoid of his own originality. Of that admittedly heavy, "absolutist" climate, a very precise concept will remain on you, like a second skin: man at the center of his creative impulses and his works.