MEN PORTRAITS _____________________ Doubt
Raffaelo Sorbi (1844-1931) Portrait of Emilio Zocchi, 1868 Private Collection
The first doubt is self-doubt. In general, human beings do not particularly like this doubt because one is projected into a cycle which we tend to consider as dangerous. However, there is nothing dangerous in doubting oneself. Doubt is the obligatory companion of evolution: if one does not question one's certainties, one will never accept any criticism. Doubt is at the center of the ordeal that constitutes for each individual personal evolution. The Florentine sculptor Emilio Zocchi (1835-1913) represented here, was never in harmony with the movements of his time. Mostly known for his busts, bas-reliefs and statuettes of individuals in the Renaissance style, he shunned fashions and took refuge in a classicism appreciated by his Florentine bourgeois and / or patrician clientele but despised by artistic circles. Taciturn by temperament, he liked to pay homage to Michelangelo whom he sculpted in different situations, the most famous being Michelangelo as a child which is preserved in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Did Zocchi doubt that by choosing the academic style rather than impressionism, he had made the right artistic choice? Never. Yet his gaze in this portrait questions the viewer. He seems to be saying, "You who are looking at me, wherever you are in time or in space - maybe even a century away - what do you think? " The painter Raffaelo Sorbi, author of this portrait of Zocchi, was of the same artistic mood. Florentine like Zocchi, he produced small canvases, sold by the Galerie Goupil in Paris, many of which were in the Neo Pompeian style inspired by ancient Rome or Tuscan history.
