MARIA Alabastre.
The Maria hand-held icon has been enlarged to be touched by the eyes.
Carved in alabaster.
40 cm | 16 in

The Enlargement

These enlargements are sculpted in marble, alabaster, or granite, allowing reaching even large sizes up to 7 ft (2.13 m) in one block of marble or granite. A wide range of colors and textures is available. The pedestal shall be designed in accordance to the final location.

Approaching a shape we can see it with our eyes closed only with our hands, or with our hands while touching it with our eyes, or touching it only with our eyes. Touching with the eyes means seeing in two dimensions and, even if we perceive volume and perspective, we are not able to see the whole from every point of view: this is possible only by touching a shape which can be inspected by the hands to a measure that allows us to compose the entire image in our brain. If it is too big, like an elephant for example, it will be impossible to compose the whole image in us only by seeing the elephant piece by piece with the hands. 

The initial Icon, shaped in 1995, was to be seen with the hands and touched with the eyes: a sight and touch complementary approach. The next one, in 1999, by enlarging it to see it only with the eyes was unavoidable in order to recover the distance and thus see the sculpture in the space, not only in that of the hands. The other approach, that of seeing it only with the hands to make it disappear, was explained at the presentation of the reduced images.

The initial enlargement  was that of the original shape of the hands. To support it on a pedestal, a rod had to be inserted on the bottom of the sculpture, thus drilling a hole with the appropriate inclination. In the case of the 30 cm enlargements it was possible to contain the statue inside a glass cylinder, like the original reproductions that have always been, and are, at exhibitions, but for the larger ones the drilling and the final installation  were much more laborious and complicated. 

How to solve this major inconvenience ? Already in 1999 Guido Dettoni had made a copy of the original handheld sculpture by adding on its bottom an incorporated base so that it could stand on its own.  He carved it in ebony wood to place it inside the pedestal of the enlarged Carrara marble sculpture on display at the exhibition MARIA in L’Albergueria, Cultural Centre of Vic Diocesan Museum (Catalonia).  This intervention was conceived to combine simultaneously the visual and the tactile approaches. It was an experience that did not repeat itself, but left the original image, which Guido Dettoni retained in the conviction that one day it would find his reason for being. So it happened in 2016 and since then the working and installation of the sculpture have been fluent and risk-free.

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