Tumarkin's Homage to the Pietà Rondanini Avigdor WG Posèq

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Fig. 1: Tumarkin, Pietà Rondanini. Assemblage, 1987. Jerusalem, Israel Museum Sculpture Garden. elements with the figures cut out of ‘corten’ sheets emphasizes the fact that Tumarkin’s Pietà is no mere replica of its Renaissance model. The transposition of the Christological motif into another sculptural medium is reflected both in the work’s meaning as a modern artists’ tribute to Michelangelo, and its own aesthetic significance. Leaving the discussion of content to a later part of this paper, we shall first address ourselves to the purely sculptural aspects of Tumarkin’s translation of Michelangelo’s marble statue into essentially two-dimensional shapes and of 194
the new elements which have been added to it. The shadowy mother figure, somewhat resembling a shooting gallery target, supports the body of her son which looks like an oversize marionette, but in acknowledging the tactile quality of his Renaissance model Tumarkin pushed back the profile which is cut into the mother's silhouette, bent the head of the male figure and moved his limbs. 3 The arrangement of the flat shapes create a suggestion of an ephemeral volumes which may be related to the Constructivist concept of sculptural form as "negative space", while the integration of the "ready made" wagon and the objet trouvé stone with figurative components may be seen as a further endeavour to reconcile the contemporary methods with the artistic tradition of the Renaissance. 4 Tumarkin’s juxtaposition of the shadow-like and three-dimensional elements also brings to mind the humanist controversy over the origins of sculpture. Renaissance theorists traced the evolution of the art to the incidental evocativeness of the shapes of natural objects such as tree trunks and clods of earth which, as claimed by Alberti, early artists gradually worked into realistic representations. Classical authors on the other hand, believed that sculpture, like painting, originated in the linear tracing of the human shade. 5 By combining the silhouettes with the unhewn rock Tumarkin claims his work's descendency from both traditions, while the fact that the Israel Museum Pietà may be seen both as a flat “pictorial” image and sculptural composition implicitly associates its maker with Michelangelo’s multifaceted dexterity. Tumarkin was probably aware that the Renaissance dispute about the relative supremacy of painting over sculpture had been resolved by declaring the disegno as "the parent of all arts". 6 By way of a gesture to this theory he left on the cut out figures several sketchy linear marks like a preparatory drawing. In suggesting that the work is not quite finished these marks also evoke the seemingly unfinished appearance of some of Michelangelo’s statues. 7 The rough non-finito effect is especially characteristic of the Rondanini Pietà, which though completed before 1563, was reworked by Michelangelo six days before his death (in 1564) and left in a rudimentary state. 8 The broken fragments of the original composition and the marks of the chisel remaining on the figure counteract their representational purpose, so that the group is perceived as a roughly carved piece of marble. Michelangelo’s search for a new solution to an already finished work has always been understood as a moving testimony of the persistence of the master's creative urge even in old age, and though in fact the Rondanini Pietà is not finished, it has been acclaimed as a culmination of Michelangelo’s artistic achievement. Tumarkin expressed his particular appreciation of this 195
Page 1: Tumarkin’s Homage to the Pietà R
Page 5 and 6: any further touch would have been r
Page 7 and 8: Fig. 3: Tumarkin Von den ‘Dicken
Page 9 and 10: assemblage is essentially different
Page 11 and 12: 19 On the special meaning of Tumark

Tumarkin's Homage to the Pietà Rondanini Avigdor WG Posèq

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