«Nudi trasfigurati da una strana metamorfosi»: la scultura di Alberto Viani intorno alla metà degli anni Quaranta

The essay examines a group of Alberto Viani’s sculptures, created around the mid-1940s, and characterized by a surrealist declination of the theme of ‘metamorphosis’. In this surrealist context, the theme of ‘metamorphosis’ is interpreted as a hybridization of the human figure with the vegetal, animal and mechanical world. Moreover, the essay intends, on one hand to identify the various visual sources used by the sculptor, on the other, it aims to define the importance of the theme of ‘metamorphosis’ itself. In particular it reflects on the interpretations proposed by the different artists studied by the sculptor (such as Hans Arp, Pablo Picasso, André Masson, Renato Birolli), and the role they played on the imaginative freedom, in an abstract sense, of Viani’s oeuvre.