250px, Obelisk monument to ''Five Days of Milan'' in memory of the popular uprising in 1848 against Austrian rule. Giuseppe Grandi (1843–1894) was an Italian sculptor.

Life

Grandi was born and died in

Valganna Valganna is a ''comune'' (municipality) within the Province of Varese in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 60 km northwest of Milan and about 13 km north of Varese. The name Valganna is a compound of valley and Ganna, which is th ...

. Taught by Vela at the

Accademia di Brera The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, ca ...

, in 1866 he won the Canonica competition with a sculpture called ''Ulisse'' and began to work on a verist sculpture of Tabacchi at

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

. After his Turin period, he returned to

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, where he joined the Lombard

Scapigliatura ''Scapigliatura'' () is the name of an artistic movement that developed in Italy after the Risorgimento period (1815–71). The movement included poets, writers, musicians, painters and sculptors. The term Scapigliatura is the Italian equivalent of ...

school. He was a friend of

Cremona Cremona (, also ; ; lmo, label= Cremunés, Cremùna; egl, Carmona) is a city and ''comune'' in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po river in the middle of the ''Pianura Padana'' ( Po Valley). It is the capital of th ...

and Ranzoni, and with them assumed a renewed anti- academist position and shared their common luministic research. Forgetting neoclassical smoothness and the lucidity of Romantic art, he sought the luministic effects of painting in sculpture. One of his best-known works is the monument to

Cesare Beccaria Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria, Marquis of Gualdrasco and Villareggio (; 15 March 173828 November 1794) was an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, economist and politician, who is widely considered one of the greatest thinkers of the Age ...

of 1871, along with the lesser-known ''paggio di Lara'' of 1873 and his ''Maresciallo

Ney The ''ney'' ( fa, Ney/نی, ar, Al-Nāy/الناي), is an end-blown flute that figures prominently in Persian music and Arabic music. In some of these musical traditions, it is the only wind instrument used. The ney has been played continually ...

'' of 1874. In 1881 his initial design won a public competition to create a monument to the ''

Five Days of Milan The Five Days of Milan ( ) was an insurrection and a major event in the Revolutionary Year of 1848 that started the First Italian War of Independence. On 18 March, a rebellion arose in the city of Milan, and in five days of street fighting ...

'' in piazza di

Porta Vittoria Porta Vittoria (formerly Porta Tosa) was a city gate in the Walls of Milan#Spanish walls, Spanish walls of Milan, Italy. While the walls and the gate have been demolished, the name "Porta Vittoria" has remained to refer to the district ("quartier ...

in Milan. For thirteen years he worked intensively at compositions,

modelli A modello (plural modelli), from Italian, is a preparatory study or model, usually at a smaller scale, for a work of art or architecture, especially one produced for the approval of the commissioning patron. The term gained currency in art circl ...

, bronze casting, and even created a small menagerie of animals as live models for the work. For each of the Five Days he had many different and well-known models pose, but he died in 1894, before he could see his work inaugurated. The city of Milan has renamed a piazza after him.

Bibliography

* Gariff, David, "Giuseppe Grandi (1843–1894) and the Milanese Scapigliatura." (Ph.D. dissertation), University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, 1991.

References

External links

*
WorksBiography
from Galleria Ricci Oddi in Piacenza {{DEFAULTSORT:Grandi, Giuseppe 1843 births 1894 deaths 19th-century Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors People from the Province of Varese Academic staff of Brera Academy Brera Academy alumni Scapigliatura Movement 19th-century Italian male artists