Italian Art Research Articles

The Canzone Napoletana Phenomenon in the reflection of scientific critical thought

The Canzone Napoletana Phenomenon in the reflection of scientific critical thought

Nikada dovršena igra oko osnivanja Galerije moderne umjetnosti u Rijeci u međuratnome razdoblju

Autor je uvidom u arhivsku dokumentaciju međuratnoga razdoblja Rijeke, od 1934. do 1943. godine, te analizom objavljenih povijesnih podataka dao prikaz pokušaja osnivanja Galerije moderne umjetnosti u Rijeci u vrijeme kada je Rijeka s Kvarnerom bila aneksirana Kraljevini Italiji, te time postala novom provincijom Kraljevine Italije. Zahvaljujući agilnomu Riječaninu koji je živio u Milanu, začela se ideja oko formiranja Galerije moderne umjetnosti u Rijeci kao vrlo bitne institucije u kojoj bi bila predstavljena djela talijanske umjetnosti 19. i 20. stoljeća. Osnivački fundus slika za Galeriju ostvarivao se donacijama talijanskih akademika te donacijom triju slika i jedne skulpture koju je dao kralj Italije V. Emanuelle III. ne bi li podržao ovakvu inicijativu i bio primjerom drugim potencijalnim donatorima. Sva donirana djela bila su pohranjivana u Milanu kod začetnika inicijative G. A. Bottussija. Zbog geostrateške pozicije Rijeke, čin formiranja takve institucije postao je pitanjem od državnoga interesa Italije koja je u njemu vidjela način na koji bi mogla širiti svoju kulturu preko svoje granice prema Kraljevini SHS te drugim podunavskim zemljama. Započeta kao privatna inicijativa Guida Asverija Bottussija, a koja će se tijekom vremena pretvoriti u inicijativu riječke gradske administracije i drugih državnh institucija sa sjedištem u Rimu, zbog približavanja rata i ratnih okolnosti, donirana djela osnivačkoga fundusa Galerije moderne umjetnosti nikada nisu došla do Rijeke, pa se time nisu ni oformili uvjeti za njezino osnivanje u potpunosti.

Bernard Berenson, Margherita Sarfatti e o ambiente artístico portenho do segundo pós-guerra

Este artigo trata das relações inusitadas do historiador da arte e connoisseur, Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), e a crítica de arte italiana, Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961), com o meio artístico modernista de Buenos Aires, entre os anos 1940 e 1950. Procuramos assim elucidar a tradução, primeiro para o castelhano e depois para o português, de Aesthetics and History, de Berenson, e sua circulação no contexto sul-americano.

"Am liebsten wäre mir Rom!": Stefan Zweig und Italien ed. by Arturo Larcati and Klemens Renolder

Reviewed by: "Am liebsten wäre mir Rom!": Stefan Zweig und Italien ed. by Arturo Larcati and Klemens Renolder Cynthia A. Klima Arturo Larcati and Klemens Renolder, eds., "Am liebsten wäre mir Rom!": Stefan Zweig und Italien. Schriftenreihe des Stefan Zweig Zentrum Salzburg 9. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2019. 216 pp. As well known as Stefan Zweig is in the German-speaking world, little is [End Page 110] known about his love and admiration for Italian culture. Italy was a place in which he saw European culture rooted, as a place that cultivated and expressed beauty in both prose and poetry. Indeed, it is interesting to note that Italy became Zweig's "Wahlheimat" of sorts, in that during the course of his relatively short life, he came into contact with many Italian artists and intellectuals who further spurred his love for and interest in the country. It comes as little surprise as well that Zweig chose Rome to be his city of exile in 1934, the year he departed Salzburg. The collection of essays in this volume is the result of a Stefan Zweig symposium that took place in Meran, South Tyrol, in 2011. It documents the Italian side of Zweig culturally, linguistically, politically, and personally. The purpose of the collection is to "discover" Zweig's admiration for Italy, as stated in the foreword of the work, "Zweigs Verhältnis zu Italien ist noch zu entdecken" (7). This "Entdeckung des Südens" developed during the course of several phases. As Arturo Larcati emphasizes in his essay Stefan Zweigs heimliche Liebe zur italienischen Literatur, "Mit keiner anderen Literatur, wenn man von der französischen absieht, hat sich Stefan Zweig so intensiv und kontinuierlich beschäftigt wie mit der italienischen" (31). Larcati explains Zweig's interests in the classicists, his contemporaries, and the writers of the younger generation, respectively, Dante Alighieri, Gabriele D'Annunzio, and Ignacio Silone. Larcati's contribution to this volume provides a good discussion of Zweig's intellectual activities in Italy during Mussolini's dictatorship and Zweig's own fascination with Silone, who operated as a strict anti-Mussolini activist, as evidenced in his novels. The theme flows further in the essay "Briefe über den italienischen Faschismus: Rainer Maria Rilke und Stefan Zweig" by Walter Busch und Isolde Schiffermüller. It is noted how little Zweig and Rilke actually wrote about Italian fascism and how both remained politically unmotivated by the political actions surrounding them, mostly out of fear for their own safety. Indeed, Zweig's own dramas and comedies enjoyed much more popularity during his lifetime than they do today. His dramas are seldom seen on the stage; his comedies remain virtually unknown since his death. In fact, he also translated Luigi Pirandello's play Non si sa come as Man weiß nicht wie, which was requested of Zweig by Pirandello. This translation is discussed thoroughly by Fausto de Michele in his article "Etappen einer Rezeptionsgeschichte: Stefan Zweig übersetzt Luigi Pirandello." In this article, de Michele discusses the original source work for this play and how [End Page 111] the play came to be. The process of the translation of the play is discussed in detail. In addition, de Michele provides attentive analysis of the translation, which differs wildly from the original Italian-language play. Because of the precarious political situation, Zweig kept his relationship with Pirandello completely professional. However thrilled he was by the opportunity to translate Pirandello's work, the political situation hindered Zweig's desire to participate in a theater congress organized by Pirandello, for fear of angering fascist authorities. De Michele provides an excellent description of this entire translation dilemma, something that remains virtually unknown about Zweig's professional life. In the contribution "Strategeien der Komik in Volpone und Die Schweigsame Frau: Stefan Zweig und die Commedia dell'arte," Monika Meister provides a discussion of Zweig's talent as a writer of comedy. Although his play Volpone is rarely seen on the stage, Zweig remains revered as a writer who reestablished the Italian tradition of Commedia dell'arte and opera buffa. Meister discusses Zweig's use of both English and Italian theatrical models and the mixture he used to produce highly unusual...

Felice Casorati as One of the Protagonists of the Artistic Life in Italy. From Symbolist Iinfluence to Valori Plastici and Novecento

«Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Искусствоведение» — научно-теоретический рецензируемый журнал, обобщающий результаты исследований ученых всего мира в различных областях искусства, включая музыковедение, культурологию и художественное образование.

ОБРАЗЫ ЖЕНЩИН-ЦВЕТОВ, ЖЕНЩИН-БАБОЧЕК В ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОМ ОПЫТЕ ИСКУССТВА ИТАЛИИ И ФРАНЦИИ ЭПОХИ МОДЕРНА

The flower and butterfly motifs, reflected in the images of beautiful women of the Art Nouveau age, have symbolic meaning, embodying an understanding of the beauty aesthetics in Italy and France in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. In the images of the “Beautiful Era” women, Italian artists use the technique when the arms of the models, as in the dance of Loie Fuler, are raised up like the wings of butterflies. The article analyzes theorists of French art in the Art Nouveau age, such as Marcel Proust, Maurice Maeterlinck, Paul Helleu, whose influence was significant for creating artistic images of women-flowers and women-butterflies in Italy and France at the turn of the 19 th –20 th centuries. The article discusses the history of the creation of the “serpentine” dance, which inspired the creation of the art images of women-flowers and women-butterflies in Italy and France at the turn of the 19 th –20 th centuries. That is demonstrated in works by such artists as Camillo Innocenti, Giovanni Boldini, Gaetano Previatti, Pompeo Marianni, Federico Zandomeneghi, Joseph Engelhard and Leopoldo Melticovitz, Elizabeth Sonrel and Alphonce Mucha.

Revisitación sobre Attilio Rossi y la crítica militante en Sur: Buenos Aires 1936-1938

Este trabajo analiza la presencia del artista italiano Attilio Rossi como crítico de arte entre 1936 y 1938 en la revista argentina Sur. Se indaga el modo en el cual sus artículos contribuyeron en la profesionalización de la figura del crítico especializado y marcaron el inicio de la crítica militante en la ciudad porteña. Basándose en el análisis de fuentes interdisciplinarias, se considera a Rossi como parte de una implacable diáspora creativa entre Argentina e Italia y se aborda la cuestión de la identidad cultural reflejada en el arte entrelazando a través de relaciones significativas los dos lados del océano.

Clúdach: Cover

Clúdach: Cover Angela Griffith Click for larger view View full resolution Cover. diana copperwhite, moonstruck, 2020 acrylic and watercolor Image used with the artist’s permission. [End Page 155] Throughout human existence, artists and writers have sought to represent reality. Debates regarding which artistic medium best describes the world around us have existed for centuries. Renaissance “paragone” theories contested the merits of, and hierarchies within, the arts, among painting, sculpture, and poetry, in an effort to establish which of them most convincingly embodied the natural world. Drawing on Neoplatonic theory, the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian artist sought to depict nature in its truest sense—meaning in its ideal form. Nature in art was rationally and morally ordered, to reflect the omnipotence of the God that made it. Painters argued that through technical skill and intellectual rigor, their medium provided a compelling window through which to see creation. The fact that color and texture were unique to painting meant it was unparalleled in its ambitions. With the emergence of modernist movements in the nineteenth century and with subsequent twentieth-century developments, painters were no longer tied to the conventions of contrived realism; rather, a subjective and intuitive approach to subject matter was adopted. Academic practice and traditional methods were modified or rejected to serve the needs of self-expression. Nature, and experiences of it, provided points of reference or departure; physical and metaphysical “realties” were given equal weight. Autographic mark-making, natural and unnatural color choice, idiosyncratic symbols and pictographs, representation and non-representation occupy the painted compositions of modern and contemporary art. Today’s artist continues in the role of seeker and revealer; they present an aperture through which they may affirm, challenge, or reinvigorate perceptions of reality for the viewer. Painters working in the postmodernist era bring a knowingness to their work. While they are part of a venerable tradition of making—many electing to use materials and methods associated with history—they are not deferential to the theories of the past. And while formalist concerns may be shared, they do [End Page 156] not ascribe to modernism’s didactic, utopian agendas. Contemporary painters embrace the fact that their art may be made and read in many ways. Meaning is not collectively shared across society; it is varied, complex, and inconsistent. As a dedicated painter, Limerick-born Diana Copperwhite navigates her own path in approaching reality. She does not claim to be an apologist or advocate for the medium. However, her works are just that: they are monumental in their ambition; the evidence of their making is forceful and undeniable. She admits that her art cannot be detached from its process and her work is an extension of her personality. Moonstruck is part of a recent series of images on paper developed in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Copperwhite is best known for painting on canvas; these works represent a departure for her. While produced on a less permanent support, they are not to be viewed as studies for larger works; they are autonomous and a reflection of her state of mind at a particular moment in time. Paper is less robust, less forgiving than canvas. It is a matrix that must be negotiated; the surface must be considered as part of the process. Nevertheless, that does not deter Copperwhite from testing and pushing its limitations. The roller and the scraper are used alongside the painter’s brush. During this period of uncertainty and disorder in society, Copperwhite has taken the time to look closely at her surroundings, to think, to imagine, and to remember. The presence of the virus made her slow down; it brought her home. As she investigates her local environment, her process includes taking photographs. However, these are not used as a compositional tool but rather are an attempt to capture the fleeting. As an artist she is drawn to the half-seen, the half-heard—the liminality between the real and the unreal—which will conversely “become” through physical expression in paint. The surfaces of a Copperwhite painting represent a balance between the emphatically rendered and the delicately inferred. Copperwhite describes her process of layering, building, scraping, and distilling...

Архитектурная перспектива в итальянской живописи XIV в.

This paper discusses the system of the pictorial depth representation, typical for Giotto and other Italian artists of 14th century. Differing from the linear perspective, this system has a number of peculiar features, and its own consistent logic for the formation of pictorial space. The paper is especially focused on the contradictions of such a system, which lead to the appearance of impossible figures, and the ways in which the artists solved these difficulties.

ДЖОТТО В РУССКОЙ ПОЭЗИИ: НЕГАТИВ, ПРОЕКТ И КОНСТРУИРОВАНИЕ ОБЩЕСТВА

The perception of Giotto’s heritage in Russian literature and culture has always been directly linked not only with the concept of the Renaissance and the development of Western culture, but with a special interest in writing practice and in the ambition of the narrative presented as innovative style to create communities. The main topic of the poetic thought was the transition from community to society, in other words, from community to church, so Giotto's status as a genius was always supported with statements about other geniuses who directly, but rather indirectly, made this transition. Despite the scarcity of references to the name Giotto, Russian poetry did not so much reflect the current art history conception, but anticipates or correctsconclusions of art historians. My careful analysis of the statements about Giotto in Russian poetry (V.Komarovsky, S.Soloviev, A.Voznesensky) in comparison with the conclusions of Russian philosophy and humanities (P.Florensky, P.Muratov, P.Bitsilli, V.Lazarev)explains plots of the poems related to picturesque impressions. The technique of chiaroscuro in Giotto, who first began to convey plausible depth through the illusory distribution of light, was understood as a technique primarily of hint and reflection, anegative, in comparison with which later Italian painting looks like a colorful positive. Such concept did not correspond to Giotto's real place in the history of art, but it did make it possible to correlate Giotto with Byzantine and Old Russian art using a golden background, emphasizing in the legacy of the Italian artist not credibility, but ability to create own art project relevant other projects.

A Paradise for Venus

Though the buying pieces of the Classic and Italian art of the Petrine time seemed to lack strategy, one can perceive some tendencies that show an aim to create what the German call Antikensammlung, a collection of Classic art kept at the royal court and organized under museum principles. One of plausible proves of this activity is an unfulfilled project made by Iuriy Kologrivov, who was busy buying pieces of art for the Imperial compilation in Rome. Having acquired some education as an architect, he proposed to Peter the Great an extant draft of the Venus’ Gallery meant to adorn his residence. For the center of the composition the statue of the Tauride Venus was chosen. Whereas this masterpiece was purchased by chance almost last of all, the average quality of the whole collection seems to be rather high, the display having been planned not as decorative one, but as an exhibition based on both art and historic principles. Some new for Petrine culture context traits include discrete exposition of Classic statues (and their copies) and modern Italian pieces along with presence of several statues of the same character (untypical for garden and interior decorative style of the period). This way of thinking coms back to Kologrivov’s culture experience gathered in Italy and even in a shape of an unrealized proposal is an interesting example of a classic art museum space and reflected the latest trends in perception of the Antiquity in Russia and Europe in the beginning of the 18th century.

«Путешествие по Италии» епископа Порфирия (Успенского) как культурно-исторический источник

The article presents the creative history of “A Trip through Italy” — an extensive section of “The Book of My Life”, a memoir and journalistic work of Bishop Porphyrius (worldly Konstantin Uspensky), who was an orientalist and a Byzantologist, a paleographer and an archaeologist. The basis for “A Trip through Italy” was the entries in his diary about his acquaintance with Italy in May to August, 1854. When preparing his work, Bishop Porphyrius significantly supplemented the travel notes with materials from rare publications. Thus, the narrative took the form of a unique historical and cultural source, the compositional core of which remained a journey through Italy. Bishop Porphyrius recorded the state of historical monuments, architectural masterpieces, and urban planning. These professional observations, often accompanied by drawings, acquire special value as evidence with history of a century and a half. In art galleries in Italy, Bishop Porphyrius stated in detail information about the number of exhibition rooms in his travel book, as well as about the location of paintings on their walls, describing not only the content of the paintings, but also his own impressions, which form a well-founded idea of the author’s aesthetic credo. Equally meticulous are the book collections, the treasures of the sacristy of many Italian cathedrals and the basilicas. In “A Trip through Italy” the author appears as a deep connoisseur and scrupulous researcher of Italian art.

A Study of Symbolism of the Pre-Raphaelite Female Images from the Perspective of Feminism

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (also known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a poetic and artistic group founded in the Victorian period. This short-lived but far-reaching artistic revolution originated from the obsession with Romanticism and the Middle Ages of several Royal Academy students. They were disappointed with the old-fashioned and lifeless academy, and wanted to return to the original natural state of early Italian art before Raphael. Also, these passionate young artists loved literature and had close contact with Victorian poets, making the literary themes in their paintings common. Female models, female images and portraits are the deepest impressions of Pre-Raphaelite painting, and the member closely related to the female paintings, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, is both a painter and a poet. This article studies the feminist elements and their symbolism in the representative works of Pre-Raphaelites from the perspective of the feminist movement and feminism, and attempts to explore their causes and other correlations through the historical background and artistic ideas. In addition, the article analyzes the identity change and identification of Pre-Raphaelite female artists from a feminist perspective.

Italian opera stars of the Kharkiv stage: the 80s of the 19th – early 20th centuries

Italian opera stars of the Kharkiv stage: the 80s of the 19th – early 20th centuries

VALENTYNO SERMATTEI’S PRIVATE ITALIAN MANAGEMENT AT ODESA OPERA HOUSE (1857 – 1859)

The relevance of the paper. The Italian Opera of Odesa from its foundation in the beginning of the 19th century became an integral part of the city cultural life. The authorities annually allocated huge amounts of subsidies to support the existence of an Italian troupe in the local theatre. During and after the Eastern War of 1854-57, the city budget suffered from an economic downturn, which is why the Italian opera gradually lost its urban source of funding – from 1855 the usual practice of the Italian opera troupe foreign engagement was discontinued. In such circumstances, the only way to organize theatrical performances was to rent a free theatre hall by various touring troupes. F. Berger’s private Italian opera enterprise acted in Odesa on the basis of the lease, in particular, during the period from 1856 to the spring 1857. After its departure, the city stayed without Italian opera. For the next two theatrical seasons the municipal authorities were again forced to offer the lease of the theatre to another Italian impresario V. Sermattei. A certain period in the history of Odesa Italian opera was one of the poor investigated ones: there missed a piece of information about the artistic composition of the troupe, repertoire policy and peculiarities of entrepreneur’s organizational activities; it is necessary to verify the Italian artistes’ valuations made by local and Italian music critics.The objectives of the study is to investigate V. Sermattei’s Odesa private enterprise activities on the stage and its socio-cultural dimensions through the prism of music-critical discourse.The methodology involves the semiotic-hermeneutic method (to analyze the peculiarities of scenic directing, the specifics of musical-critical thought, the audience reactions and preferences as a text of culture and its hermeneutic comprehension); bio-bibliographical method (for clarifying and combining the facts of Italian singers’ life and creative activity in Italy and abroad, in particular, in Ukraine); cultural-historical method (allows to study V. Sermattei’s Italian troupe scenic activities as a social phenomenon, contributed to the dissemination of Italian opera achievements in the local musical and theatrical environment).Findings and conclusions. V. Sermattei’s enterprise during 1857-59 gained peculiarities connected with the specificity of its financing. As the profit was constituted with season ticket and entrance fees only, the entrepreneur sought to profit by saving money on performances (props, scenery), reducing the cost of soloists, choirs and orchestra musicians engaging, as well as increasing the number of premieres performed in the theatre repertoire. The austerity mode had a negative effect on the engaged soloists’ scenic qualities, many of whom had no stage experience, so they were unable to perform the popular Verdi’s repertoire, also it led to reducing a number of choirsingers and orchestra musicians.The accelerated pace for new performances preparation influenced the directorate coursed the operas being staged without proper rehearsals, so the performers felt uncertain on stage, made mistakes and, as a consequence, exposed to fair criticism. Instead, the music reviews, being published in local newspapers, gained professionalism, first of all, thanks to P. Sokalsky’s, S. Schiff’s and other music correspondents having had special music education publications. News columns devoted to the Italian troupe performances testified to their authors’ deep awareness in the field of the opera history, vocal performance art, contemporary trends in music development in general. The Italian artists’ performances are analyzed in music-critical articles according to the texts of the original operatic scores, often several author’s editions are taken into consideration. The singers’ vocal and acting talents, revealed at Odesa premieres, local musicologists often compared with the eminent Italian artistes’ performances, which they succeeded to see at famous Europe theatres.

Ideology and Memory in Fabio Mauri’s Performances and Writings from 1970’s: an example of Institutional Critique in Italy

This article analyses a set of performances and installations created by the Italian artist Fabio Mauri (1926- -2009) in connection with his theoretical writings and anchors them to the international artistic concern of the time: institutional critique. Eight of Mauri’s performances from the 1970s are documented. This study centres on the fi rst three chronologically – Che cosa è il fascismo, Esercizi spirituali and Ebrea, all dated 1971 – which better exemplify the theme on which Mauri focused throughout this period. As theoretical texts, photographs and objects reveal, these eight performances and installations all involve the critique of ideology as institution. This practice shares many similarities with institutional critique, that is, the international and systematic inquiry that aims at subverting the roles of the art market and artistic institutions. This paper offers a novel interpretation of Mauri’s work as an example of institutional critique in Italy.

Sfera sacrum w Cronaca del Luogo Luciana Beria

One can point to numerous manifestations of the sphere of sacrum in Luciano Berio’s stage works. It is created in the works of the Italian artist through the use of Christian symbolism, or that associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition, as in the case of Cronaca del Luogo (1999). The sphere of sacrum in Berio’s last stage work is created through such means as intertextual references to the Holy Writ, rabbinic and apocryphal literature and, linked to the creation of specific locations of the action – the space of sacred place, the palace and a Jewish cemetery. Even the title of the work points to the link between the work and the sphere of sacrum, and between the sphere of sacrum and the symbolism of space. This article will present an interpretation of these „imagined worlds” linked to the sphere of sacrum, created by the relationship between words, sounds and images, on the boundary between the space of the „wall” of Salzburg’s Felsen-reitschule, where the work had its premiere, and the imagination of its creators and audiences.

The Female Body in the Artistic Research of the Late Twentieth Century The Case of Vanessa Beecroft

Disguised, adorned, placed in space and obsessively controlled, the body exhibited in Vanessa Beecroft’s performances, drawings and photographs, highlights several key themes of contemporary debate, such as identity transformation, desire, gaze and obsession for perfection, shown from the artist’s perspective and impressed on her models’ bodies. The present essay aims to deepen these topics through the works of Vanessa Beecroft, with an emphasis on those realised in the early nineties – among which the drawings of deformed bodies and the compulsive annotations of the Libro del Cibo – and relating them to the contemporary research of Italian female artists, which reveal new declinations of art making, starting from the same subject: the female body and its symbolism.

Antonio Canova’s drawings in the Rare Books Collection of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità Library (Rome, Italy)

The paper aims to promote the knowledge of the extraordinary collection of anatomical subject drawings by Antonio Canova, the most important Italian neoclassic artist, owned by the National Institute of Health Library in Rome. The history of acquisition by the library and the analysis of their importance in the long career of the artist is also treated. A short story about the fortune of the drawings in the last 20 years completes the study.

Martina Tanga, Arte Ambientale, Urban Space, and Participatory Art

Martina Tanga’s Arte Ambientale, Urban Space, and Participatory Art is a thorough and carefully researched account of Arte Ambientale (Environmental Art), the term given to describe the interventions into cityscapes made by certain Italian artists in the 1970s through a diverse set of practices which included sculptural, conceptual and participatory works, all of which sought to address the social relations at play in often peripheral and marginalized urban locations. Hitherto neglected in It...