Created in 1991
“o gente umana per volar su nata perché a poco vento così cadi?”
(Oh humanity born to fly/ why do you fall at the slightest wind?)
Dante Alighieri, Divina Commedia, Purgatorio, XII, 95-96
Materials: travertine, rope, modelled land and lawn
Dimensions: 30 x 10 m
With this work in Roman travertine, the artist Maria Dompè proposed the restoration of classical culture, filtered through the personal re-invention of a classical column, empty and divided into blocks which in turn are sectioned longitudinally. The fragments are connected by a rope and unfold with the elliptical modelling of the land. The base and the capital of the column give to the blocks placed on the land a compositional order and suggest a possibility of the reconstruction of architectural elements, always understood as a support: the column represents the axis of the construction, and links the diverse levels which guarantee solidity. The structure of the column itself suggests an ideal belonging to the dominant vegetal element on which it is based: an elliptical base, an ideal ocular form, an eye open on the captivating scenery of nature. A warning to human frailty which finds its exact collocation in a context where nature reverberates with its vigour, the primordial dominion over man.