Beethoven’s Mask (c. 1925)

Attributed to Giuseppe Gronchi

Provenance: Rome, private collection

Given the proud character and focused gaze typical of the artist tout court, the subject of this study can be identified with the face of the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), a source of inspiration for countless artists in both music and art. Thanks to the epic myth of the “heroic artist” he soon became a favourite subject for the visual poetics, first of Neo-Classicism and then Romanticism.

The great painters and sculptors experimented, especially in the nineteenth century, with what we can identify as the two basic models for portraying the great musician, which are the “life” and death masks, created by Franz Klein in 1812 and Josef Danhauser in 1827.

Our mask pursues the physiognomy of Klein’s face created during life, visible above all in the representation of the mouth and cheekbones, as for the upper part of the eyes, the artist has limited himself to incorporating full pupils.

The types of marble chosen and the rendering in the modelling of the face suggests the mask was probably made in the mid-1920s, and the most likely name for our sculpture is that of Florentine sculptor Giuseppe Gronchi (1882-1944). This deco-style artist, skilled in extracting from the material the compact shapes and volumes that were common in the representation that was prevalent throughout Europe at that time.
Gronchi, who is still unknown to the general public, had a flourishing career, with important commissions, ranging from public and civil art to funerary depictions, from small formats to celebratory monumentalism.
In 1904 he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, where he graduated in 1911, after a break for a few years, which lasted until 1909.
There is evidence of his work as early as 1901, when he exhibited at various events organised by the Society of Fine Arts of Florence and took part in the 1910 competition for the Monument to Ugo Foscolo in Santa Croce, which was highly praised by the press but not selected. During these years, he participated in several competitions and exhibitions in his own city as well as in Bologna and Naples, showing the contemporary influences of sculptors such as Vincenzo Gemito and Auguste Rodin.
He took part in the decoration of the Savoy Theatre in Florence, inaugurated in 1922, designing in particular the friezes of the paired columns, the balustrades of the second loggia, and the decorative masks and the zodiac panels on the ceiling of the foyer’s first section. In these works, his style has updated to the archaism of Bourdelle, poised between the muscularity of Art Deco and the sinuosity of Art Nouveau, which would characterise his style throughout the Fascist period.

In those years, he was a prolific author of the “monumento-mania”, creating as many as ten commemorative works in Tuscany, including tombstones and actual monuments dedicated to the fallen of the First World War. Some are known only from photographs taken at the time, as they were destroyed during the conflict or in the post-war period. The other works testify to a certain eclecticism: although they share a common Deco matrix, they are close to the Symbolism as well as to the propaganda of the regime, even to Angelo Zanelli’s interpretation of Classicism and Antonio Maraini’s solemn modelling.

At the same time, especially in the 1920s, Gronchi carried out an intensive production of tombstones and cemetery monuments for the main Florentine cemeteries. Amongst his most significant works are the sepulchral cippus for Igilio Righini (1919) and the bust of the actress Garibalda Niccoli (1923) in Trespiano, Florence. In 1929, he also sculpted a large crucifix, of which a plaster version remains in the church of Santa Maria a Ricorboli, Florence.

His fame, consolidated throughout the previous decade, guaranteed him a prestigious place in important national commissions.
In 1931, together with many other sculptors, he completed the decoration of the Milano Centrale railway station, creating the Capitoline Wolf, the Lion of Saint Mark, the Griffin of Genoa and the Bull of Turin on the cusps of the sides.
Between 1930 and 1932 he created the advertising fountain for Campari, influenced by Secessionism and the work of Ivan Meštrović. Unfortunately, of the thirty or so reinforced concrete fountains originally built, only three remain. The one in the Le Piastre location, in the province of Pistoia, is the one which most preserves the original as it still represents the two decorative heads and the complete advertising inscription, while the other two are located in Chiusi della Verna (Arezzo) and Brunate (Como).

He also participated in the decoration of the National Central Library in Florence between 1934 and 1935, in particular for the two statues that support the ramps of the grand staircase. Finally, he made a bust of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy for the auditorium of the Scuola di Guerra Aerea (Air War School), which has since been lost. The artist died shortly after the liberation of Florence in August 1944.

In addition to the neoclassical and expressionist influences, particularly in the style of Meštrović, another source denoting a deep knowledge of European sculpture was undoubtedly the work of Adolfo Wildt (Milan, 1868- Milan, 1931) for the polishing of the marble and the almost obsessive treatment of the material.

Depending on the commission, Gronchi’s style ranges from a figurative and solemn monumentalism to a more typical Deco style, in which he adopts the mannerism of the Milan sculptor. As mentioned above, Gronchi had the opportunity to see Wildt’s art through publications and exhibitions at the Venice Biennales.

One work in particular caught my attention, namely the face of Carattere Fiero (1912). There is a certain resemblance to our Beethoven mask: the nervousness of the flesh and the subsequent quivering are an essential source of the indication for understanding the work which, in its complexity and finality, finds its fulfilment precisely in the Art Deco style thanks to the representation of the locks of hair which resemble the grooves of a classical column, interrupted by the Wildt-style cut at the back. For this comparison, see the 1918 emblematic work of Maschera dell’Idiota (Mask of the Idiot). Finally, the base in black Zebrino marble, which was very popular in the first decades of the Novecento, emphasises the whitish pallor of the frowning face.

As proof of the likely attribution to Giuseppe Gronchi, in conclusion, we refer to a comparison with another mask made by the artist, recently issued to the Italian antique market. It is the face of Giuseppe Verdi, distinguished by a slightly verist modelling while featuring Art Deco connotations in the final rendering due to the characteristic clean cut on the back of the sculpture (Fig. 2 and Fig. 3). When compared closely, the two masks present many similarities. Firstly, the sculptor instils a strictly two-dimensional connotation to the work by creating a sort of cameo set at its base, both in the Beethoven and in the Giuseppe Verdi. In the background we find a cleanliness both in the final rendering and in the complexion of Wildt derivation, without finding that particular obsessive anatomical search and the typical absence of the eyeballs.

In the same years, with the same subject depicted and the same artistic temperament, Marcello Mascherini (1906-1983), an artist from the region of Friuli, younger than Gronchi, assimilated the expressionist language of Meštrović and the exasperation of Wildt (Fig. 4) by reproducing a much more scowling Beethoven with a twisted neck, discharging all the tension into the supporting base. Two styles, two different visions for the same subject: on the one hand a classical Gronchi and on the other a young revolutionary Mascherini.

Mirko Agliardi

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