It was our last full day in Rome, and we were going from one fascinating place to another, when I happened to look up to see what appeared to be a massive sheet blowing in the wind, with a bowling ball balanced atop it. That was weird enough, but it got weirder still: it was made of bronze.
“What the hell is that thing?” I asked Dear Husband. He was as mystified as I was.
Upon closer investigation, it turned out to be a rendition of someone much beloved by Romans: Pope John Paul II. It is placed on a traffic island in front of Termini Station, Rome’s main transit hub. Approximately 480,000 people pass through this station every day, so it’s a safe bet that most Romans have come face to face with this big bronze thing at least once since its original installation in 2011, and some get to pass it daily as they commute to and from work.
According to a poll in Rome’s main newspaper, 87 percent of the people don’t like it. Even the Vatican didn’t like it, despite the fact that they’d signed off on the original sketches. I don’t blame them at all. While researching this article, I have heard it described as a public urinal, a sentry box, a tent, or like a bomb has been dropped. One went so far as to say that it was “a permanent and sacrilegious mud stain on his memory.”
Another woman had the same thought that I did. If I were homeless, I’d find it a great place to sleep. She opined that in no time it would be full of empty beer bottles.
But the primary, practically unanimous opinion was that it was ugly, didn’t look anything like the pope, and in fact looked much more like the former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
After much public outcry, and a month after it was first installed, the artist, Oliviero Rainaldi, passionately defended the statue. He said it could be regarded as a classic someday, and that there are so many photos of the pope, why do we need a photographic resemblance? He even had the audacity (in my opinion) to say that most people didn’t like Michelangelo’s David when they first saw it.
In Rainaldi’s defense, he meant well with the creation. It was supposed to symbolize the pope opening his cloak to embrace and shelter the faithful, just as he had been a spiritual shelter to Catholics everywhere. He said, “The man within was more interesting to me than the man outside” describing a man who was “lacerated” inside “not only by his infirmity but also by his mission.”
“These are often things that even the people who are close to you and love you donʼt want to see. Often we want to (see) that they are strong, beautiful – but it is not always the case. This man showed he was beautiful for other reasons, beyond his appearance.”
To all that I would say, “Yes, Rainaldi, your heart is in the right place. But my God, man, read the room.”
Even if the artist couldn’t see reason, Rome’s mayor definitely could. He assembled a committee of art experts, culture officials and scholars to work with Rainaldi to make the sculpture match what had been approved in his sketches.
17 months after the artist’s adamant defense of his work, the revised statue, that you see above, was unveiled. He claimed that it only required “small corrections”. Those changes include a head that actually has a neck, a smiling face, and a defined chin. His cloak looked more like a cloak, and his welcoming arm was straightened out.
Rainaldi claimed to be quite pleased with how the second one turned out. He said it looked more like his original sketch. He was quick to blame foundry workers for a botched assemblage the first time around, despite the fact that he seemed just fine with it at first. That makes me think even less of him than I did when he tried to compare himself to my man Michelangelo. Get a little backbone and take accountability, man.
But is the public pleased? I couldn’t find any follow up survey. But one passerby, when asked by a reporter, said it still didn’t look like John Paul II, and that it still looked like a refrigerator. I tend to agree. And given that I only saw the revised version and thought it was a monstrosity, I can’t even imagine what the original looked like in person. But here’s a comparison of the old and new heads from an article from CBS News, as well as a shockingly awful picture of the original in all its “glory”.
My final assessment is that even the newer statue gives me the creeps. It’s a little too close to Uncanny Valley for me. And the man looks like the love child of a flasher and a vampire. It doesn’t help that the bird plop and rain that runs down his head and cape gives him a disgusting, sinister appearance. I can’t imagine what it must look like at night. Do they light it up? If so, it must cast a weird shadow.
But on the bright side, someone must have taken the beer bottle comment to heart, because as you see in the very first image, the revised statue stands on its own enclosed, off-limits pedestal. So someone was listening to complaints, anyway. But the inaccessibility is kind of ironic since it’s supposed to be a welcoming, sheltering statue. Just one more weird thing about a very weird work of art.
Additional sources:
Revised statue of Pope John Paul II unveiled in Rome
John Paul II Sculptor defends his work
Atlas Obscura–Sculpture of Giovanni Paolo II
Vatican Slams New Modernist Pope John Paul Sculpture by Oliviero Rainaldi
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