Luigi Secchi al Cimitero Monumentale di Milano tra impeccabili ritratti e sensuali figure femminili

Luigi Secchi (1853-1921) was one of the most important artists between the 19th and 20th centuries in Milan. During his forty-year career, the sculptor, after the training that took place at the Brera Academy and in the private studies of the masters of the Scuola di Milano, specialized in public monuments. His friend Luca Beltrami played a fundamental role in promoting Secchi to public and private clients, involving him in many projects assigned to him. The artist quickly established himself as an excellent portraitist for his executive skills, the innate ability to grasp and faithfully represent the essential characters of the people with few strokes, both in official monuments and in commemorative portraits. Another line of work cultivated by Secchi was the study of the female figure, presented in plaster, marble and bronze. These sculptures reveal his fascination for the subject, interpreted by in Symbolist style. Like many of his colleagues, Secchi also worked for the Monumental Cemetery in Milan: in three decades he carried out thirteen works, two of which no longer exist. Nine funeral monuments (to which two medallions in the Famedio are added) representative of both languages spoken by the two peculiar characteristics of the sculptor – impeccable portraiture and a preference for female subjects – are analyzed here for the first time, also with reference to some plaster models preserved in the Gallery of Modern Art of Milan.