Ernesto Biondi, Saturnalia 1904 - The Controversy
Ernesto Biondi - "It was twelve years ago while going over some ancient Roman manuscripts that I conceived a statue to represent the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. At first it was intended to be a much smaller group than it is. But the idea grew in my mind until it became a full life-sized group of ten figures. As every one knows, the feast of the Saturnalia were celebrated during three days every year. The greatest liberty was accorded the people; gladiators, soldiers, and slaves and the era I have depicted is that one when the helpless soldiery, unable to oppose barbarian invasions, wreaked their vengeance on the citizens by tyrannizing over them. The old social organism was falling into decay the rulers were feebly striving to postpone the swiftly approaching end and at the same time to forget their anxiety by humoring their pleasures."
Biondi continued, "This bronze group shows the dawn following a night of orgy. A company of plebeians has met with some intoxicated pagan priests on the sacred highway. All three of the latter are the incarnation of the pagan world. They recognize in the group a patrician woman who has instinctively sought the protection of the gladiator, whose face is illumined by the spirit of revolt, a new Spartacus conscious of his power! Near them is a child marching on to a new existence. On one side is a woman of the people, next to whom is a brutalized slave enjoying a moment's license, next a mercenary soldier, and then a flute player. They swing along singing, opening thus, perhaps unconsciously, the funeral march of an era. Is that an improper conception?"
Henry R. Elliot of the Church Economist
"The theme is obnoxious. It is curious that a subject of this sort is so often tolerated because the details are treated in terms of two or three thousand years ago. It would not be art to depict a group of drunkards reeling down Broadway in evening dress, but is correct if the revelers are dubbed bacchantes or dressed in Roman or Grecian clothes. We have similar absurdities in music and literature. Lay the scene in Spain or in fairland, and anything is "art". To dwell in detail on a debauch in the Tenderloin is low and not to be permitted. But to describe the revels in the streets of Rome during the Decadence is a work of art. There is too much of this in vogue, in my judgement, for public morals. The Saturnalia was a beastly orgy, which no city in the civilized world would now tolerate. Why make a characteristic group of such an evil debauch the theme of a work of statuary? Suppose the treatment is masterly; what of it?"
Biondi, "To think that a moral lesson like the "Saturnalia", designed to show the decadence of Rome under the Emperors...should be smirched with the epithet immoral! As an artist, I was amazed that a group which received the suffrages of the greatest artist assembled at Paris, including Americans, should have been treated so ignominously. As a thinker I was aghast at the dullness of men who could so misconstrue the meaning of the group as to think it unfit for public exhibition."
The statue is now in Buenos Ares.
source
Biondi continued, "This bronze group shows the dawn following a night of orgy. A company of plebeians has met with some intoxicated pagan priests on the sacred highway. All three of the latter are the incarnation of the pagan world. They recognize in the group a patrician woman who has instinctively sought the protection of the gladiator, whose face is illumined by the spirit of revolt, a new Spartacus conscious of his power! Near them is a child marching on to a new existence. On one side is a woman of the people, next to whom is a brutalized slave enjoying a moment's license, next a mercenary soldier, and then a flute player. They swing along singing, opening thus, perhaps unconsciously, the funeral march of an era. Is that an improper conception?"
Henry R. Elliot of the Church Economist
"The theme is obnoxious. It is curious that a subject of this sort is so often tolerated because the details are treated in terms of two or three thousand years ago. It would not be art to depict a group of drunkards reeling down Broadway in evening dress, but is correct if the revelers are dubbed bacchantes or dressed in Roman or Grecian clothes. We have similar absurdities in music and literature. Lay the scene in Spain or in fairland, and anything is "art". To dwell in detail on a debauch in the Tenderloin is low and not to be permitted. But to describe the revels in the streets of Rome during the Decadence is a work of art. There is too much of this in vogue, in my judgement, for public morals. The Saturnalia was a beastly orgy, which no city in the civilized world would now tolerate. Why make a characteristic group of such an evil debauch the theme of a work of statuary? Suppose the treatment is masterly; what of it?"
Biondi, "To think that a moral lesson like the "Saturnalia", designed to show the decadence of Rome under the Emperors...should be smirched with the epithet immoral! As an artist, I was amazed that a group which received the suffrages of the greatest artist assembled at Paris, including Americans, should have been treated so ignominously. As a thinker I was aghast at the dullness of men who could so misconstrue the meaning of the group as to think it unfit for public exhibition."
The statue is now in Buenos Ares.
source