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Newly restored sculpture in the Loggia at the Museo Novecento
'Figurative' loyalty
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Raphael Mafai was a maverick artist at a time when Abstractionism was all the rage in Italy. Her Maternity is proof that she made no apology for her devotion to figurative sculpture. Her diary entry from October 1957 is indicative of her love for the Humanist art ideal. "They are constantly talking about Abstract Art these days. I try to understand it, but it's not clear to me. I admit that many pieces of that kind of art are nice; I understand the importance of what they bring to color and how it is expressed in space and other things as well. But I do not believe that this can become the Art of the Future, despite it engendering Artists like Kandinsky, Mirò, Robert Delaunay among others. In my view, it's a scientific art form that knows little of humanism. I cannot understand a painting, and even less a sculpture, without any reference to the human figure."