Pioneering Modern Sculpture «An Original Relationship to the Universe»*

Abstract

The essay aims to analyze the work of David Smith, focusing in particular on the last three years of the American sculptor’s life, in which the artist reached the pinnacle of the possibilities inscribed in his own plastic-figurative path. On the basis of an open confrontation with the vastness of the cosmos, David Smith came to play a pioneering role within the abstract art experience of the twentieth century. The monumental dimensions of his works, together with the use of stainless steel, arise from the need to establish a relationship between man and the world that has its origin in the power of the mystery of which air and light are the most emblematic witnesses.