Cast & Forge

From 6th December to 1st March 2009

The Gonzato Collection is presented to the public for the first time.
The about 90 selected pieces are mainly small bronzes from the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, but you can also find some paintings and prints that go back to the seventeenth and to the eighteenth centuries. The leading theme is the world of the blacksmith: all works of art represent the blacksmith seen through the eyes of various artists that seize different aspects of such character and relate them to their time.

The exhibition “Cast and Forge. The blacksmith in the bronzes of the Gonzato Collection” offers to the visitors an unusual tour focused on the blacksmith, starting from the representations of the mythical Vulcan up to the connection between the blacksmith and the birth of modern industry.
As a matter of fact, the exhibited collection does not focus on a single period nor on an artist, but on the theme of the representation of the blacksmith. Around such theme, it points out some precise aspects that differ from the point of view of the style, the symbology and the meaning. The visitor can admire paintings of the seventeenth century portraying Vulcan in his forge and other blacksmith characters leading the way to the rising Industry of the early twentieth century, but also Otto Von Bismarck portrayed as a blacksmith to state that he is the man who will forge the destiny of the Nation and a Siegfried that forges again and repairs his broken weapon as a blacksmith.
The present exhibition is peculiar since it proposes a wide thematic collection identifying many other semantic aspects in it and their connection with the time of the various artists.
Among the pieces of the exhibition, the visitor will find different works of art of big artists like Luca Giordano, Carl Johann Loth, Ernest Ludwig Kirchner, Eugéne Marioton, Julius Elie Delaunay and many others.
The high level of many of the pieces exhibited and their strong thematic content make such exhibition unique in the world and the cooperation of the municipality of Bassano del Grappa enriched it with scientific precision and cultural and educational meanings.