Ghiorgo Zafiropulo Sculptor & Philosopher
Madonna dell'Unita
This religious work an expression of the faith of Ghiorgo Zafiropulo
is considered seperately because of its dimensions. The Madonna and Child is almost of natural size. Two examples exist, one located in the Tuscan coutryside, in the Val'Arno near Florence, in Mariapoli Loppiano, a Focalare community where he lived for months, installed in 1979 and another called "Notre Dame de la Très Sainte Esperance" erected in 1981 near Nice at Saint Sauveur sur Tinée overlooking the valley of the Tinée.
The importance of this work is in its original design, according to the artist: "The similarity of the faces between mother and child is the result of long prayerful meditation of the author's in front of the Holy Shroud of Turin..." "... Jesus had no father according to flesh, he had to look perfectly like his mother. The imprints of the face left on the shroud thus allow this authentic resemblance".
He sculpted the Virgin and Child whose faces are very similar, serious and adult as on the Shroud of Turin. Christ points the way with his finger, whilst his mother, in a hieratic posture, has a sad resigned expression. To reinforce this symbolism the figures stand on a solid Platonic base, a dodecaedron consisting of regular pentagons forming a sphere, strongly related to the golden number. In the face of each pentagon stars are potentially listed. This type of dodecahedron have always been associated with the existance of God. It evokes simultaneously sky, rock and earth.
The patina is dark green and its oxidation gives the whole an elegant and mysterious look.
Left:
Diagramatic depiction of a dodecahedron one of the five Platonic Solids
