British author Anthony Burgess once said that “It is as inhuman to be totally good as it is to be totally evil”, perhaps implying that the absolute is the sphere of only the divine and the diabolic. Human beings are in a state of flux, alternating between states, rather like patchworks of virtue and vice. Being human is often erroneously defined as being understanding, ready to offer a shoulder for suffering fellow humans on which to cry, offering calming advice and solutions. However, there’s a cross to bear in being human, a debatable fall from grace as narrated in Genesis.

One could surmise that removing the ‘traces of human’, as the joint exhibition by two veteran sculptors is titled, would bring out the animal in us. There is indeed a fine line between the human and the bestial, considered as antonyms. Contemporary society is more turned on by the latter, in the behaviour of the warmongers, exploiters and political delinquents.

'Maternity' by Mario Agius

The term bestial in this context denotes negative, destructive behaviour. Strictly speaking, it is the adjective derived from the noun beast. It is often held that some animals demonstrate more human traits than their supposedly more-evolved counterparts. The derogatory nature of the term hints at depravity; however, no other member of the animal kingdom organises pogroms of its own kind.

Angelo Agius and Mario Agius, though not related by blood although sharing the same surname, are connected by a similar artistic sensitivity. They are both intrigued by the human figure and its relation to circumstances, pitfalls, vulnerabilities, saving graces and all. Both artists have asserted that this exhibition is about life itself.

Seminal 20th-century Italian sculptor Arturo Martini (1889-1947), whose oeuvre had the backdrop of the two world wars, fascism and all, realised that the medium had resisted abrupt transformation of its vernacular. In his words: “Poetry, music, architecture, like ancient languages, have been translated into new idioms, by clinging to life. Only sculpture has remained immobile across the centuries, a courtly language, the language of the liturgy, a symbolic writing, incapable of making its mark on daily acts.”

'Skjav 1' by Angelo Agius

Since those days, sculpture has evolved in leaps and bounds; it has become kinetic, more interactive and attuned to circumstances. Nonetheless, there are contemporary sculptors who resist perfunctory impulses and look back to classicism and towards its ‘harmony, restraint, and adherence to recognised standards of form’. Angelo and Mario Agius belong to this school of thought. Angelo hails from the Maltese village of Żebbuġ while Mario hails from the Gozitan village of Xagħra, living across from Ġgantija Temples. One of the Maltese village’s famous sons is Antonio Sciortino (1879-1947), one of our country’s most famous sculptors as well as a foremost innovator as regards the local early 20th-century art scene.

Like Martini (he died the same year as the Italian sculptor and was only 10 years his senior), he explored the possibilities of the sculptural medium, adapted the Futurist preoccupation with speed and movement, and ultimately returning to a more classical expression while also embracing the flowing lines of Art Nouveau.

Angelo Agius’s traces

Angelo’s Mother and Child I shows the artist’s discipline and technical prowess in representing motherhood. The mother’s expression is a loving resignation to her role, staid and solid. There is no movement in repose as in Luca della Robbia’s Mother and Child with Scroll, her two children vie for her attention. The terracotta endows the piece with an expressionist Paula Modersohn-Becker raw earthiness. However, in Mother and Child II, the reference is to the traditional Madonna and Child sculptural imagery as found in Michelangelo’s famous Madonna of Bruges.

The reference to the Mannerist Italian genius is carried forward in the Maltese sculptor’s Skjav 1 and 2 (Slave 1 and 2). Michelangelo’s famous four slaves are ultimate examples of his non-finito approach, where he left work in an unfinished state. Many believe that this was his artistic statement, marble being such an unforgiving medium, symbolising “the struggle of man to free spirit from matter”.

'Isqof' by Angelo Agius

Angelo’s slaves are more refined as the mediums he used are conducive to this. Skjav 1 is hewn out of a block of wood, much more sympathetic to the chisel. The narrative is fluid, rather a non-finito in a way. The expressionist strength of the piece lies in its primitive nature; the kneeling figure, hands bound behind its back, is rather messianic and Christ-like. One debates if the upright figure is an executioner, ready to execute and decapitate, or if the axe will be used to liberate the slave from the knots of slavery, rather than life itself. Skjav 2, in bronze, can be more easily read. Body in tension, muscles stretched to their limit in an attempt to free himself from his predicament. However, the pillar is firmly rooted to the ground and slave he will remain.

Isqof (Bishop), L-Ewwel Pass (The First Step), Passi ’il Quddiem (Steps Forward) and Tlieta min-Nies (Three People) speak the same language. In Isqof, there is a reference of Giacomo Manzu’s series of stylised bishops, mostly lacking limbs and thus appearing more monumental.

They are both intrigued by the human figure and its relation to circumstances, pitfalls, vulnerabilities, saving graces and all

Angelo’s sculpture is similarly a study in volumes and shapes, obelisk-like and apparently uncommunicative. The flow of the robes and the stylisation of the figures of L-Ewwel Pass, Passi ’il Quddiem and Tlieta min-Nies are somewhat reminiscent of the Fra Diegu and Dante monuments by Maltese sculptor Vincent Apap (1909-2003).

'Tlieta min-Nies' by Angelo Agius

The figures, lacking feet, appear rooted to the ground in these particular Apap and Angelo Agius sculptures, iconographically adding a stern, timeless, ‘Etruscan’ dimension. The repetition of the human motifs in Tlieta min-Nies resonates with Italian sculptor’s Mario Ceroli’s (b. 1938) Figure Sedute of 1971 and his La Grande Cina, 1968, the latter exhibited at Torino’s Galleria d’Arte Moderna. These Angelo Agius and Ceroli pieces question identity and whether we are indeed complacent as mere shadows and followers of each other, fitting into a stereotypical template.

Mario Agius’s traces

Mario’s exhibits, as is the case with Angelo’s, are a cross section of the expressive abilities of the Gozitan sculptor. The pieces in wood show an angst-ridden expressionist Enrst Barlach (1870-1938) spirit in the primitive quality of the features and the rough texture of their surfaces. The chisel’s dents and chips are not polished away; they are left as evidence of the creative process.

Having been tutored by Maltese sculptor Anton Agius (1933-2008), the tutor’s teachings have been integrated into the oeuvre of the student. The older artist was inspired by rock formations, fossils and trees. He used to start off from a tree trunk or a branch, and he gently relieved the timber from its bark along the outer growth rings to expose the ‘memory’ of the sapling at the core of the trunk.

'L-Eremita' by Mario Agius

For Mario Agius, just as for his former tutor, gnarled trunks, roots and branches provide him with possibilities; elusive forms that he could ease out with hammer and chisel. L-Eremita (The Hermit) is an example of this, sculpting out a bearded face while the rest of the body is simultaneously concealed and revealed, imprisoned by the structure of the piece of wood. Hermits shun the noise of society, hiding away in the most secluded places as they contemplate silence and solitude.

Meekness is expressed in Gratitude, the figure withdrawing into itself, the facial expression showing relief in being delivered from some plight, hands almost clasped in prayer. This sculpture reminds one of Seneca’s words: “The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.” One can find the most intimate of human traces through introspection and disengagement with the outside world. Mario’s sculptures Refuge I and II work in much the same way.

'Gratitude' by Mario Agius

Maternity demonstrates totemic qualities in which the Gozitan artist excels. The flame-like figure reaches skywards, the composition dictated by the intrinsic qualities of the branch of wood. The woman is bearing a child, her facial expression denoting discomfort caused by her present state. She abandons herself to the seemingly frictionless flow of the composition.

The Kiss is a rather minimalist sculpture in marble which eliminates the figures of the couple and concentrates on the point of contact between the two heads. Many sculptors have tackled the theme, Auguste Rodin and Constantin Brancusi are the examples that immediately spring to mind.

Rodin’s famous masterpiece is a sensual depiction of Francesca da Rimini, a noblewoman, featuring in Dante’s Inferno, who is consumed by lust for her husband’s younger brother. Brancusi’s proto-cubist version merges the male and female forms into one, thus creating the purest form of this most intimate of human expressions.

'The Kiss' by Mario Agius

Mario’s version takes into consideration both Rodin and Brancusi, however keeping the heads apart and converging to a point where the lips meet, while the embrace merges the two bodies into one entity. There is a Henry Moore reduction of volumes to organic forms, the properties of the medium itself contributing to the homogeneity of the intimacy portrayed.

Trace or stain?

“We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen - there’s no other way to be here,” observes American novelist Philip Roth in his famous novel The Human Stain, indeed a rather nihilistic view of humankind. The two Maltese sculptors’ perspective offers a much more redemptory and hopeful viewpoint, as one can find traces of what is human in its most basic, ‘non-bestial’, behaviour, as expressed through the pieces in this exhibition.

Traces of Human, hosted at The Exhibition Hall, Ministry of Gozo, St Francis Square, Victoria, runs until April 1. Open from Monday to Friday from 8am to 4pm and Saturdays from 9.30am till noon.