Bambina che ride (Laughing Girl)

Medardo Rosso is regarded as one of the harbingers of modern sculpture, along with Auguste Rodin, whom he would encounter in 1889. Wax was the ideal material to convey his interest in reflecting the atmosphere surrounding different scenes. Bambino malato (Sick Child) belonged to Parisian critic Louis Vauxcelles and arose from Rosso’s admission to the Lariboisière Hospital in Paris in October 1889. As the artist explained: “The bust of the young man in pain records, above all, the search for truth that is not reduced to phenomenological appearance, nor situated outside it: the psychological dynamic and vital energy are captured in one specific situation. The image is not formed from an idea, but from the revelation allowing the correlation between the visible and the invisible”. Bambina che ride (Laughing Girl), meanwhile, is a portrait of the daughter of Marie-Jacques-André-Louis Enjolras, the ecclesiastical administrator at the hospital. The work was sculpted after the artist was discharged, between November and December of 1889, and has a “snapshot” quality that seeks to capture a fleeting gesture. Both works are an example of psychological hermetism and formal simplification that were characteristic of Rosso’s early years in Paris, a pivotal time in his career.

Carmen Fernández Aparicio