An Ancient Marble Herm in the Palazzo Falson Collection

Anthony Bonanno attributes an intriguing bearded marble head to a special category of Greco-Roman sculpture, tracing back its aniconic origin in Greek prehistory and its iconography in Greek Classical art

Among the numerous objects on display in the jewel of a museum that is the Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum in Mdina, the visitor’s attention is attracted by a small head carved in marble. The marble is white with medium-sized crystals and a somewhat honey-tinged patina. The surviving height of the head is 12cm and its maximum width is 9.3cm; the head is, therefore, roughly half life-size (Fig. 1).

In view of the frequent and intensive involvement of Olof Gollcher, the former owner of this collection, in underwater archaeology, one is tempted to attribute the prevailing wear of practically all the surfaces of the marble to the possibility of it having been exposed to underwater currents. Such a possibility is not to be excluded, in which case, however, one would normally expect to find evidence of borings of minute sea creatures on some surfaces, like those found on a marble torso of an Amazon or Artemis lifted out of the sea mud in Marsa in February 1865.1 On the other hand, the tiny flecks of red and blue colour kollox! was his constant admonition, followed by a cheery ‘and Bob’s your uncle!’. Missed but not forgotten, thanks again and always, John. Indeed, in the words of Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965): ‘At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the fame within us.’

Prof. Anthony Bonanno, B.A.(Hons) (Melit.), D.Lett. (Palermo), Ph.D. (London), FSA, is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Malta within the Department of Classics and Archaeology. He has lectured in Archaeology and Classics at the University of Malta since 1971 and paid lecturing visits to various universities in Europe, Africa, and the United States. He has also authored numerous publications on Maltese archaeology, with a special interest in prehistoric and Classical art.

Notes

1 See http://www.maltaimpressions.com/John%20Borg%20 Manduca.html#features16-5f.

In the decades following the Second World War, the ArgentineItalian artist Lucio Fontana (1899–1968) became singularly concerned with the creative possibilities of the hole or cut (taglio); a hallmark of his artistic career and with which he is almost exclusively and synonymously associated to this day. This crucial phase of Fontana’s artistic output coincides with a period of transition following the devastation of the war, a phase suspended between the reality of the threat of modernity to human freedom and fraternity and, on the other end, the promising reach of technological and scientific development.

As it were, the radical gesture of making a hole or cut in the canvas was, therefore, the necessary step after which, Fontana claims, ‘we are free to do whatever we want.’1 Or, in an eschatological sense, herein lies the knowledge that the gestureimage is not an end but, indeed, the beginning of something new, thus liberating the artist and the beholder in a human creative mission which ‘can now be carried on in tranquillity, detachment and freedom appropriate to the penultimate.’2

The acceptance that man’s creative gesture—as with destruction—is not absolute since it lacks total finality implies that art may be viewed as a continuous process of becoming precisely because of its inability to be final, even though it is nonetheless grounded in mortality—a distinction which Fontana and his peers were careful to make in the Primo Manifesto. Here the gesture was hailed as an eternal act which transcends matter and, effectively, all that is conceived in a particular time and space. The solution to the crisis of art in the mid-twentieth century was thus, according to this view, to be found in the integration of time and space through the unifying act of the gesture—as an act of progression towards totality.3

Excerpt from the entry on this artwork, written by Giulia Privitelli, in the exhibition catalogue of Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti’s forthcoming exhibition, In Search of Line, opening to the public in late Spring at 275, St Paul’s Street, Valletta— Patrimonju’s new administration and gallery premises where a permanent collection of Victor Pasmore’s works will be displayed while also serving as a space for the setup of temporary exhibitions related to Maltese modern art .

Notes

1 Lucio Fontana quoted in Tommaso Trini, “ Te Last Interview Given By Fontana,” in W. Beeren and N. Serota, eds, Lucio Fontana, exhibition catalogue (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1987), 34.

2 Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology, Death and Eternal Life, Aidan Nichols, ed., Michael Waldstein, trans. (Washington: Te Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 170.

3 Cf. Joppolo Beniamino, Lucio Fontana, et al., Primo Manifesto dello Spazialismo (Milan: Galleria del Naviglio, 1947), par. 1.