Satta Square in Nuoro

Against the trend, still common today in Sardinia, to give urban spaces, during “restoration”, a flat Renaissance stereometry, Nivola maintains the inclined trend of the square, which favors the connection between the historic district of San Pietro and the expansion of the new city in Corso Garibaldi, and spreads the surface of large granite boulders.

In the cavities of the stones, he places small bronze sculptures that portray Satta in his various roles and attitudes as poet, lawyer, father, happy person, and that, after the strong visual impact of the boulders, require a close-up vision; everything is enclosed by a fifth of houses painted in white and unified by the squared stone pavement and seats that emerge plastically from the geometry of the pavement.

On the one hand, Nivola thus sets aside the homage to the “illustrious man” to give way to the affectionate commemoration of a citizen in whose actions the entire local community can recognize himself; on the other hand, by respecting the value of the square as a “pause” in the urban fabric, he enhances its character as an “interior” and creates an environment in which the accents of intimate, private enjoyment prevail.

This vision of the monument stems from his idea of an art aimed at rediscovering the ancient ability to transmit shared values, lost with the advent of modern individualism. An art far removed both from the rhetoric of nineteenth-century statues and from the arrogance of many modernist sculptures that, created for the museum or gallery, are transferred to the squares without concern for the environment in which they must be inserted, or even in clear opposition to it.

MONOGRAPHS
G. Altea, Costantino Nivola. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2005 (The Masters of Sardinian Art; 14)

Update

25/9/2023 - 17:11