Gaudenzio Marconi (12 March 1841, Comologne, Switzerland–1885, Schaerbeek, Belgium) was a Swiss/Italian photographer who later worked in France and Belgium.
The compositions he created show particular attention to the plastic quality of the bodies, with a clear intent of highlighting the movements of the muscle masses. The subjects are almost always photographed against neutral backgrounds or simple landscape backdrops, making very little use of decorations or props except for a few essential drapes. The Michelangelo-style representation of the vigor and volume of the bodies comes through forcefully—contrary to the works of other artists—and excludes any evocation of unreal atmospheres or the adoption of sensual poses.
Marconi fell foul of more strictly enforced French censorship laws imposed between 1871 and 1877, under the conservative regime of President MacMahon. From April 1871, even académies were forbidden to be displayed in the public spaces of Paris; thus even photographic reproductions of paintings of nudes that had been publicly displayed in the Salon and the Louvre were restricted, so that photographs of Bouguereau’s Birth of Venus, Boucher’s Venus and Adonis, Ingres’ Roger rescuing Angelica and Regnault’s Three Graces produced by Goupil and other firms, while approved for sale, could not be displayed in shop windows.
On 1 July 1873, in the seventh chamber of the Tribunal Correctionnel de Paris, Marconi was convicted of crimes against public morality. Notably, Marconi collaborated with the sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom he posed the soldier August Neyt, rather than a professional model, for the creation of the 1877 L’Âge d’airain (The Age of Bronze). Rodin also commissioned Marconi for a photographic reproduction of the finished work, in its preview in Brussels in January 1877 prior to its submission to the Salon of Paris. Rodin and Marconi remained friends and the sculptor tried to preserve his. Sadly, many pieces were lost through ignorance or in the two World Wars. A collector and 100 of his photo prints, and his block was destroyed when the French Resistance tried to fight the Nazis during the occupation of Paris.
Kisses from PARIS!!!
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