Girl towards Evening

Very soon, however, Martini's interests went beyond the somewhat decadent, excessively aestheticising elegance of his research in the years of Ca' Pesaro and the Roman Secession (1913-15); the sculptor concentrates on overcoming the picturesque effervescence of a vaguely Impressionist kind of modelling such as then prevailed, in order to recover sculpture as an autonomously constructed organism, reduced to its essence, without descriptive frills. In an ideal structure clearly inspired by Laurana and at the same time by Cycladic idols, Martini establishes a complex dialogue with history, or rather with myth, and with phenomenal results (the analogies with Modigliani's poetics are not few); in the apparent coldness and geometric purity of the volumes and in the polished clarity of the planes he offers the expression of a closed and sensitive lyricism, recollected and shadowy.