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$\text{Agrabo Tima}$ $\text{Sculptor}$
Excerpt
First pages of the volume, freely accessible.
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A. Monsieur Victor Baudon Architecte et ami à sa famille avec ma profonde reconnaissance pour l'aide morale et matérielle. Alfred Do Pino Paris le 2-12-1929
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ALBANIA Alfredo Tima Hathuare
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ALFREDO PINA by Gaston de Pawlowski Edition by JEAN ALLARD 5 bis, RUE DES HAUDRIETTES - PARIS 1929
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Copyright 1929 by JEAN ALLARD, PARIS All rights reserved
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ALFREDO PINA Who has not often heard certain enlightened lovers of art regret the past centuries and the marvelous eras when genius flourished at its purest? "Ah, if we had lived in the time of Michael Angelo, what an intense pleasure would have been ours in becoming his most humble servitors, in relieving from him all the difficulties of life, in permitting him to create ceaselessly in full happiness, without encountering the shabby combats of daily existence". But bear in mind that in the time of Michael Angelo the same words must have been uttered by other art enthusiasts: Ah, if they had lived in the day of Phidias, how passionately they would have defended him against the monstrous attacks of a people who accused him of having misused gold destined for the statue of Athena! With what vigor they would have refuted the charge of stubborn vigilance with which he was attacked! But rest assured that, living in the time of Phidias, the same enthusiasts would have been the first to long for the "good old days of Dorian realism", or of "pure Attic grace". The fact is that the majority of art lovers have a conservative spirit, without even suspecting it, and that they willingly acknowledge genius when it is consecrated by the approbation of time. However, how much more profitable it would be to search in our time for future immortality, and to discern among our contemporaries the Phidiases and Michael Angelos of today whom future art lovers will bitterly regret not having been able to aid.
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But, you will say to me, how can we hope to find among those of our day artists comparable to those of former times! We live in an age of pure machinery when artists destitute of all talent are launched by managers exactly like stock market exchanges. Their work? One buys them exactly like stock; they can be formless, horrible, incomprehensible, no matter what, if one only knows that the signature will be sustained. The same phenomenon has occurred in all ages and it is only the recoil of time that permits us to put each one in his proper place. In the time of Phidias we might prefer now some pleasant sculptor of the Athenian manner, now some old sculptor of ancient tradition. As for Michael Angelo everybody knows that for a long time Baccio Bondinelli was preferred above him. Today, — who knows Baccio Bondinelli? But the genius of Michael Angelo? It was doubted more each day due to the intrigues of the court, and we know the fashion in which the great man, in order to scoff at the snobbery of his contemporaries had concealed in an excavation plot his Cupid, in order that one discovering it the “enlightened connoisseurs” might declare that there was one of the most precious remains of ancient art. Michael Angelo, fortunately, had preserved with care in his studio one of the arms of the famous Cupid. But where, you will ask me, will we find the Michael Angelo of our day? Well, his name is Alfredo Pina. But remember, Alfredo Pina lives among us, he is our contemporary; for the “snobs” several years more must pass in order for them to know the place he occupies in the history of art. It is difficult to distinguish a young oak in the sacred wood among the shrubs which surround it; only those who know its strength realize that its mighty shadow will dominate the forest. I already hear certain readers exclaim: Alfredo Pina... Michael Angelo! To compare a genius of former times to a contemporary artist, what an exaggerated comparison!
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Indeed, it is admitted, by custom, that the great men of former times have never been a part of unhappy humanity. Draped in long white robes, seated majestically or conversing in verse on the Elysian Fields, they are placed in their immortality in the ranks of the gods. They are inaccessible, superhuman, inimitable; they are legendary characters, frozen summits whose grandeur holds them far from the warm valleys. It is this absurd prejudice which disfigures history and too often prevents us from living in a whole hearted relationship with the masters of former times. On the contrary, what a consolation, what an encouragement it could be for us to revive the unhappy lives of the great men of the past, to show that their painful existence was like ours, their joys and sorrows identical with those which we experience each day. Besides, understand me well: if it pleased me to find in the vicissitudes of life and in the characters of Michael Angelo and of Pina astonishing similarities, I do not intend by that to make useless comparisons between their work. Each region has its highest mountain, each epoch inspires a different genius. Gaurisankar no more suppresses Mont Blanc or Sorata than Wagner annuls Beethoven or Mozart. A great artist who dominates his age should not be compared to another artist of another time who dominated his, if each has not been supreme in the same manner in the age in which he lived. If I say that our Pina is the Michael Angelo of our time, that signifies only that he must be for us what Michael Angelo was for his contemporaries and nothing else. Thus an equation can be made. Moreover a method of artistic expression belongs much more to the age than to the artist. What would have been the work of Wagner if Wagner had been born in the time of Mozart and that of Michael Angelo if he had been born in ancient Egypt? Pleasant, no doubt, but of quite a a different exterior contour.
