Subject

The artist considering the stone material used for the creation of the sculpture the Serizzo Antigorio, should accomplish the subject: Bruna Alpine breed of cow in its real size.

The Pastoral Muse can be freely interpreted in its historical and social context: as a companion of man, mother and woman in the rural environment, as a creator of resources, as a metaphor of fertility, maternity, a bearer of austere, intimistic love and so on..

Surrounded by the Alps, the Verbano Cusio Ossola territory, is considered to be a land of nature. Here the harmonic sense of creation, has shown its expression through giant rocks, coloured flora and mysterious fauna.

The lakes Orta,Mergozzo and Maggiore, mirrors of the sky, have represented elements of communication and exchanges from the Celts until nowaday.
This territory, full of emotions and traditions , alternates the four seasons, following the spontaneous beat of the earth, offering to residents and tourists its blooming semplicity.

It is in this area that men, since remote times, have connected and related their existence, with the expression of their surroundings, considering nature, not only as a landscape, but as a faithful accomplice, companion and vital lymph.

Since long ago, farming, was wide spread, many cows populated meadows. In the Ossola territory, it was not difficult to find numerous dairies spread around in small hamlets: these dairies became a fundamental meeting point for breeders, peasants, shepherds and families. Dairies were the places for the artisanal production of milk and its derivates: pearls of the local economy.
If the Bruna Alpine breed of cow, was the Pastoral Muse, protagonist with its soft movements of the first resource in Ossola, at the same time, a geological resource, with strong and majestic features, was characterizing another working aspect, even more important: the extraction and processing of stone.

The first stone-masons, with the only instruments at their disposal: cudgels and chisels, transformed a raw block into a great hand-made piece of work, which was useful and essential for daily life (houses, cowsheds, hay-lofts, roads, but also artistic work, such as churches and chapels).
With untiring repeated perseverance, men beat the stone, a metallic tinkling echoed among the montains, beating out the time of work, shared together with mothers and companions through ringing cow-bells.

The perseverance of this work, difficulties and sacrifices of these professions, surely weren't forgotten and put into a disheartened oblivium, but they represented the seeds of today's fruits.

Historical images, conjure up people, who lived history, they represent important witnesses of this original connection stone and its Pastoral Muse that deeply characterized the course of the mountain man.