The critic

The critic

MADONNA DELLE NEVI GIORNALI 006Giuseppe Banda worked during the difficult social and temporal post-war context. Indeed, his artworks have been influenced by the historical and social circumstances typical of the reconstruction period. In this period, in Italy, the artistic activity was mainly monumental, funeral and celebratory.

In this context he started his artistic career, never retracting the figurative character of the artworks, starting from the realism and moving to the harmonic and lyric abstraction of the shapes which follow personal rules and proportions.

Analysing the Giuseppe Banda’s works of art, it is possible to recognize two periods in his artistic career: the first one, from the 1948 to the beginning of the ‘70s, dedicated to the big monumental artworks, the period of “commissions”; the latter one, from the second half of the ‘70s to his dead in 1994, characterized by sculpture of small and medium dimension, the period of his artistic maturity and the freedom of expression.

In the monumental period, it is possible to recognize four steps characterized by an elegant and strong composition.

In the first step, at the end of ‘40s and the beginning of ‘50s, Giuseppe Banda conveyed the influence of his academic education, modelling artworks with static shapes and figures with an ordered composition which follows the classical rule of beauty.
In the second half of ‘50s something starts to change in his sculpture. His artworks maintain a classical composition, with the addition of realistic details. The slow and progressive separation from the academic education starts.

In the ‘60s his artworks do not have a stylistic continuity: the shapes differ depending on the kind of artworks and subject. It is possible to find connections to the avant-garde trend of the ‘900, features of the past as well as personal interpretations like the “Madonna of the Snow” at the Monte Moro Pass – Macugnaga.

In the ‘70s the characters maintain the harmonious ratio of the body proportions and they appear hyper realistic. The subjects are common people, the faces are portraits, the figures are dynamic and characterised by a detailed anatomic research of the face and musculature to give origin to expressions, feelings and sensations.

At the end of ‘70s, the freedom from the commitment pressures allowed him to pass from the interpretation of the classical rules to the formal freedom. His productions were focused on “stories and popular true life” or on artworks in which the figure proportions are abandoned in favour of a major “stylistic elegance”.

In the artworks of “stories and popular true life”, the details of the characters are always present and well-finished in order to well identify the moment of real life.

In the artworks with “stylistic elegance”, the figures are unnaturally elongated and sometimes extremely slim. The human figure follows a so controlled linear and geometric scheme to assume a poetic value. The artworks are invaded by equilibrium, calm, sweetness, serenity and freshness, the sculptures are joyful, dynamic, full of vitality and they show the joy of life and the pureness of emotions.