VENUS OF THE PORTS

Returning to Liguria in 1930, at the end of his teaching period at the I.S.I.A. in Monza, Martini worked on large-format sculptures: these were the years of the one-of-a-kind refractory terracotta masterpieces, which he created at the I.L.V.A. furnace in Vado Ligure. The dimensions of the latter were such that he even allowed him to shape the clay inside the furnace, thus avoiding easy damage when moving it between drying and firing. Among the last masterpieces of this period, Venere dei porti was created at the end of 1931: a photograph from the time shows it in the space in front of the Vado Ligure furnace.
Seated, with her legs dangling, on a shapeless support (perhaps a simple sack used for transporting goods), the modern Venus stares at the horizon in front of her. The artist does not provide further descriptive elements of the environment, concentrating all his attention on the body and its pose. The head supported by the hand, the half-open mouth and the gaze lost in the void suggest the state of mind of the figure suspended in a dimension, physical and psychological, of disconsolate indolence. Treated in the same years (think of La veglia), the theme of waiting is here associated with the solitary and melancholic daily life of the prostitute in the port cities. The torsion of the torso with respect to the lower limbs (which requires the viewer to have a 360° view of the whole) seems to imply the desire for a shift in perspective: the woman turns "elsewhere", seeking alternatives to the difficult present in which she is immersed. The subject, which in different terms had also inspired other artists (including Sironi) and which Martini himself had tackled since his youth (with Prostituta of 1913), finds in the use of terracotta an unprecedented expressiveness: the rough modeling of the surface infuses the naked body with a rough, yet resilient character, almost shaped by the hardships of life. Exhibited in 1933 at the IX Treviso Art Exhibition, thanks to the interest of Giuseppe Mazzotti it was purchased by the Municipality of Treviso, thus merging into the collections of the Civic Museums.

Close-up of the Venus of the Ports