Twentieth-Century Italian Art: 1909-1969 (AHIS40008)

This subject examines specific moments in twentieth-century Italian art. Exploring a broad range of visual culture in modern Italy, the syllabus will cover artistic developments and critical debates in painting, sculpture, film, architecture, and industrial design, and investigate their influence on contemporary art. The material will be brought into focus by being organized around two fundamental issues: the relationship between art and events in the broader social and cultural sphere, and the changing face of avant-garde practice throughout twentieth-century Italian art. Students will investigate the futurist movement’s violent polemic against traditional art and their various attempts to connect art and everyday life through painting, sculpture, music, fashion, and the decorative arts. They will also study the surrealist work of Giorgio de Chirico, whose melancholic paintings depicted the intrusion of modernity into everyday life. The complex relationship between futurism and fascism will be examined in conjunction with a broader study of fascist culture, concentrating on architecture, propaganda, and political spectacle. Students will study the work of post-World War II realist filmmakers and industrial designers in the light of their claims to bring art closer to the people. The rise of abstraction during the 1950s and 1960s will also be examined. Lucio Fontana’s introduction of anti-artistic and industrial materials into his painting and sculpture will be investigated, as will the work of Piero Manzoni, who mercilessly attacked the post-WWII commercialisation of the avant-garde. The subject will conclude with a survey of the late 1960s work of the Arte Povera artists, whose emphasis on process and materiality will be examined as part of the ongoing ambition in Italian art to disintegrate the boundaries of traditional art.