Ugolino and his sons marble western sculptures

The background of western sculptures:

Ugolino was a Florentine contemporary of the great poet Dante, who colluded with the Kipling party in order to fight for power in the Guelph party. Later, he was locked up in the tower of the castle by his party, killing his children and grandchildren. Starved to death. In “The Divine Comedy: Hell”, Dante not only angers him for betraying and turning to the enemy but also laments his inhumane torture. Like other romantic artists, Carpo was attracted by this story, thinking that “this theme is extremely exciting and very similar to Laocoon”, so he completed this work in 1861 and was appointed to the country in 1862. Cast this group sculpture into a bronze statue. The works of western sculptures are sad and moving. The expressions and dynamics of the characters and the psychological portrayal are meticulously detailed: Ugolino’s dark eyes, sunken buccal muscles, the movements of tearing his mouth and hands, and the tension and curling up all over his body fully show that he was bitten by regret and despair. To bite the heart so that there is no escape from the situation. Four descendants surround him up and down, enriching the all-around expressiveness of the work, and making the tragic atmosphere of western sculptures work more intensely rendered.

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Different artists’ interpretations of the same western sculptures:

This western sculpture is Ugolino Della Guerradesca and his dead children. Ugolino was the Count of Guerardesca in the 13th century. Driven by hunger, he committed the crime of eating dead children while in captivity in Murata, Pisa. This western sculptures depicts Ugolino kneeling on the ground naked. Ugolino crawled over the bodies of his dying sons, his mouth open with a desperate expression. Because of this, he seems to have lost all human dignity. Looking at these western sculptures, Rodin made the viewer feel the humiliation and animality of Ugolino’s story. A key difference of Rodin’s western sculptures is the positional change of Ugolino. He flattened the figure of Ugolino on the child. In doing so, it is believed that it reinforces the inhumanity of Ugolino’s actions. Rodin used Dante Alighieri’s sacred comedy about Ugolino to express his thoughts. Because of his crimes, this story tells how Ugolino also has the title of Earl of Cannibals. Dante’s story explains how Ugolino was driven crazy by hunger and how to eat his dead child. Rodin uses Dante’s story to explore the cause of Ugolino’s eternal curse.

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