Laying the Foundations for an Antiheroic Approach to Modern Sculpture

This chapter contextualizes Medardo Rosso's early life and the beginning of his career within the uncertain nationalism and ambivalent internationalism that characterized Italy in the two decades after its unification. Rosso grew up in the aftermath of the Risorgimento. Like many Italians of his generation, he was disenchanted by the unfulfilled promises of national unity, a dissatisfaction he dared to express in his early art. His first works of the 1880s define his enterprise within the hopes and disillusionments of these post-Risorgimento decades. His unorthodox approach suggests that, early on, he developed unique artistic solutions compared to those of his compatriots. This approach was especially notable in his rejection of the tradition of heroic mythmaking in sculpture.