Column statues

Cathedral construction sites have disappeared, but the columnar statue still emerges under Galbiati’s gouge. He loves sculpting irreducible sanctuaries: pillars with bare feet, serene faces, hands making the liturgical gesture of offering.

Both large and small works are highly structured: tensions and lines of force build up and find a resolution to their contradictions, their balance in the face. The face then seems to invade the whole space, overflowing its limits, spreading out like a radiance of thought, like the foliage of a tree. In the past, painters used to put a halo on saints to signify their glory and aura; Galbiati has integrated this into the very body of his sculpture.

The central theme of Galbiati’s sculptural work is undoubtedly to bring out the invisible in man. This is the challenge of his work.

A. Kerros