Dictionary
Art in Italian Fascism
The political movement of Italian fascism ("Fascismo") was prepared by its leader, Benito Mussolini, as of 1919, when the organization "fasci di combattimento" was founded, the group came into power in 1922. Even though Fascismo has an ideologic proximity to National Socialism, art and cultural policies in Fascismo were a great deal more pluralist.
It is wothwhile mentioning that the development of the Fascismo was accompanied by the development of Italian Futurism, which occupied an important role within the European vanguard movements on the one hand, on the other hand it was determined by an aggressive nationalism. This trend becomes most obvious with the artist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), who had called for a cultural revolution with the "Futurist Manifesto" as early as in 1909, glorifying the cathartic powers of war and expressing a strong belief in technological progress.
Mural paintings, aiming at a combination of architecture and painting, played an important role for fascist propaganda as of the 1930s. In this context, artists such as Massimo Campigli, Carlo Carrà, Achille Funi and Mario Sironi published the "Manifesto della pittura murale" in 1933, explaining that mural paintings can address the people more directly, which was suppossed to be the predominant objective of art in a dictatorship. These artists also belonged to the group of the "Novecento" (as of 1926 "Novecento Italiano"), whose neoclassicist paintings also served the fascist propaganda.
The rather neoclassicist path was also taken in architecture, as shown by the monumental buildings by Giuseppe De Finetti, Giovanni Muzio and Gio Ponti. Decorative and symbolic ornaments, so-called "fasces", were mounted to the facades, those were an emblem of authority in ancient Rome, and also the etymological origin of the term "Fascismo".
The political movement of Italian fascism ("Fascismo") was prepared by its leader, Benito Mussolini, as of 1919, when the organization "fasci di combattimento" was founded, the group came into power in 1922. Even though Fascismo has an ideologic proximity to National Socialism, art and cultural policies in Fascismo were a great deal more pluralist.
It is wothwhile mentioning that the development of the Fascismo was accompanied by the development of Italian Futurism, which occupied an important role within the European vanguard movements on the one hand, on the other hand it was determined by an aggressive nationalism. This trend becomes most obvious with the artist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), who had called for a cultural revolution with the "Futurist Manifesto" as early as in 1909, glorifying the cathartic powers of war and expressing a strong belief in technological progress.
Mural paintings, aiming at a combination of architecture and painting, played an important role for fascist propaganda as of the 1930s. In this context, artists such as Massimo Campigli, Carlo Carrà, Achille Funi and Mario Sironi published the "Manifesto della pittura murale" in 1933, explaining that mural paintings can address the people more directly, which was suppossed to be the predominant objective of art in a dictatorship. These artists also belonged to the group of the "Novecento" (as of 1926 "Novecento Italiano"), whose neoclassicist paintings also served the fascist propaganda.
The rather neoclassicist path was also taken in architecture, as shown by the monumental buildings by Giuseppe De Finetti, Giovanni Muzio and Gio Ponti. Decorative and symbolic ornaments, so-called "fasces", were mounted to the facades, those were an emblem of authority in ancient Rome, and also the etymological origin of the term "Fascismo".
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