Giulio Aristide Sartorio, “Artists Raise Venus” (The Locatelli Diptych), 1906, Oil on Canvas, Milan
Born into a two-generation Roman family of sculptors in February of 1860, Giulio Aristide Sartorio studied art, with emphasis on painting, among his family. In 1876, for a short time, he attended the classes of Romantic painter Francesco Podesti at the Academia di San Luca in Rome.
Sartorio started working for established architects and painters, in particular for the studio of the Spanish-styled painter Álvarez Catalá, whose works were in high demand by the art market. This profitable business enabled Sartorio to open his own studio in 1879 and start a personal career.
In 1923, Sartorio adapted a series of decorative panels, entitled “Artists Raise Venus”, previously displayed at the 1906 Milan Universal Exposition, for the Milanese house of the metallurgical entrepreneur Giovanni Locatelli, making formal changes in its context to align the panels to the atmosphere of the Victory of the Great War. In his customary poetic style, Giulio Sartorio portrayed an ideal classical and symbolic vision of Italy with its people revived to a new life after the achieved reunification.
Upon relocating the two panels to the Locatelli house, Sartorio added to each diptych panel the dates, in Roman numerals, of the entry into the war and of the Victory. On the solar disc supported by the three Graces, he added the legendary names of three decisive victory battles for Italy during the war: Karst, Piave, and Vittorio Veneto.
The new context of Sartorio’s diptych was to give a sense of hope to an Italy that had been able to unite its scattered forces in a grand effort of common rebirth. This was depicted by the dynamic group of young people on the left panel, raising together the statue of the goddess Minerva, a symbol of civil, military, artistic, and intellectual virtues.