Varieties of ‘Classicism’ in the 1920s: The Peculiar Case of Armando Spadini

Abstract

ABSTRACT In 1922, Armando Spadini (1883–1925) appeared at the Fiorentina Primaverile alongside the Valori Plastici group, the most significant advocates for a ‘new classicism’ in Italy in the early 1920s. Only a few years earlier, Spadini had been criticised for his lustful Impressionism by those same people who would later accept him within the Valori Plastici group. In 1924, Spadini, widely appreciated as one of Italy’s best contemporary painters, held his first solo show at the Fourteenth International Venice Biennale. Through a close reading of the critical reception of Spadini’s works in the early 1920s, this article reveals a painter more seriously engaged with the artistic debates of the time than is often credited. It further challenges some assumptions about the Valori Plastici group and the early-twentieth century notion of ‘classicism’ by unveiling how the term ‘classical’ was not a stable signifier but, rather, a repository of disparate artistic conceptions.