Lorado Taft ~ The Solitude of the Soul /La solitudine dell'anima, 1914

In stone, four life-sized figures, two male and two female, posed around and halfway emerging from, or captured by, an indistinct central volume.

By the American sculptor Lorado Taft, 1860-1936. In the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

The Neoclassicism of the sculptors Harriet Hosmer and Randolph Rogers was replaced in the second half of the 19th century by the more realistic naturalism of French-trained sculptors such as American sculptor Lorado Zadoc Taf (1860-1936). An instructor in modeling at the School of the Art Institute for 20 years, Taft created public monuments for Chicago that made the city a center for sculpture. The figures in this work are only partly freed from the marble, a technique that emphasizes the mass and outline of the stone.
Explaining The Solitude of the Soul, Taft wrote, “The thought is the eternally present fact that however closely we may be thrown together by circumstances . . . we are unknown to each other”.

Midwestern poet Jared Carter pays tribute to Taft's "The Solitude of the Soul" in his contemporary sonnet of the same name: 

Silence made tangible, serenely caught
In bounded space. Pure form revealed, stripped bare,
Bereft of guises and disguises. Ought
Matters not, nor might have been. They wear
Each other’s presence like a flower, yet find
No comfort in the vine of outstretched hands
That draws them close. No mortal sleep could bind
Such distances. In dreams, we understand
But cannot have. Awake, we strive to know
But still must journey on. Yet here, a flame
Moves warily among these polished forms,
Seeking through art what life cannot bestow-
The moment come again, the touch, the name.
As lightning’s torch is herald to the storm.

Artista: Lorado Taft
Dimensioni: 2,31 m x 1,30 m x 1,05 m
Supporto: Marmo
Data creazione: 1914
Luogo: Art Institute of Chicago Building, dal 1914

Il Neoclassicismo degli scultori Harriet Hosmer e Randolph Rogers è stato sostituito nella seconda metà del 19° secolo dal naturalismo più realistico dei scultori addestrati in Francia, come lo scultore Americano Lorado Zadoc Taf (1860-1936). Un istruttore nella modellazione presso la Scuola di Art Institute per 20 anni, Taft ha creato monumenti pubblici per Chicago che hanno reso la città un centro per la scultura. Le figure in questo lavoro sono solo parzialmente liberate dal marmo, una tecnica che enfatizza la massa e contorno della pietra.