The Roman School ( Italian: Scuola Romana or Italian. Scuola di via Cavour ; School on Cavour Street ) is an art movement of the 20th century, founded by a group of expressionist artists. It gained popularity among two generations of Italian artists: for the first time between 1928 and 1945, and the second time in the mid-1950s.
Content
Origin
In November 1927, spouses, artists, Antonietta Rafael and Mario Mafai settled in house No. 325 on Via Cavour in the Savoyard Palace, which was demolished in 1930 to build the Via dei Fori Imperiali . The largest room in the apartment has been converted into a studio.
For a short time, this studio became a popular meeting place for the Roman intelligentsia. Among the participants were the writer Enrico Falki , poets Giuseppe Ungaretti , Libero de Libero , Leonardo Sinisgalli, as well as young artists Scipione, Renato Marino Mazzakurati, [1] and Corrado Cagli.
Ideas
The spontaneous collaboration of artists in the studio on Via Cavour, apparently, was caused not by any art programs or manifestos , but rather by friendship, cultural synthesis and extraordinary visual unity. They formally contrasted their firm commitment to European expressionism with his neoclassical paintings promoted by " Return to Order" in the 1920s, which was especially strong in Italy after the First World War . The first definition of this art group, apparently, belongs to Roberto Longy , who wrote about them in the newspaper Literary Italy on April 7, 1929:
“I would call it“ School of Cavour Street ”, at the same address where Mafai and Rafael worked ...”
and added:
[This is] an eccentric and anarchoid art, which can hardly be accepted by us, but it is nevertheless a noticeable symbol of today's morals.
Longy used this definition to indicate a particular work that, in his opinion, these artists did to develop expressionism , moving away from traditional art movements [2] .
In those years, the artist Cagli, Corrado became one of the founders of the art group "New Roman Artists" ( Italian: nuovi pittori romani ), which critics also attribute to the Roman school. Cagli described the pervasive sensitivity and spoke of Astro di Roma (Roman Star), confirming that it was the real poetic basis of the “new Romans”:
“In the beginning, everything should be reviewed, and the imagination will again revive all miracles and will tremble from secrets.”
And thus, highlighting the complex and clearly articulated Roman position, in contrast to what Cagli called the imperative neoclassicism of Novecento . The Roman school proposed a “wild” style of painting, expressive and erratic, expressive and with warm shades of ocher and burgundy. Formal rigor was replaced by a clearly expressionistic foresight. [3]
For example, Scipione embodied a kind of Roman Baroque expressionism , where decadent landscapes of the historical center of Rome in the Baroque style often appear, with the image of priests and cardinals , made in expressive technique. Similar themes were present in the paintings of Raffaele Frumenti in the second generation of the Roman school, with bright red shades and soft strokes.
Second Generation of the Roman School
After 1930, instead of decay and oblivion, the Roman school was revived with the help of other artists. The Second Generation developed in the 1930s and peaked shortly after World War II. Among those who participated in the second wave were such artists as Roberto Melli, Renato Marino Mazzakurati, Guglielmo Gianni, Renzo Vespignani and the so-called tonalists led by Corrado Cagli, Carlo Levi , Emanuele Cavalli and Capogrossi, who all aspired to the activities of "Galleria della Cometa." [four]
Later they were joined by: Fausto Pirandello (son of the Nobel Prize Luigi ), [5] Renato Guttuso , brothers Afro and Mirko Basaldella, [6] Leoncillo Leonardi, Raffaele Frumenti, Sante Monahesi, Giovanni Omichcholi and Toti Shiala. [7]
Museum of the Roman School
The Villa Torlonia in Rome , in the Casino Nobile building on the second floor, houses the Museum of the Roman School
Notes
- ↑ On Mazzacurati, see also his biographical (Italian) note at Scuola Romana.it
- ↑ In the journal L'Italia Letteraria of 14 April 1929, where a concomitance with Marc Chagall is also mentioned.
- ↑ Cf. Renato Barilli, L'arte contemporanea: da Cézanne alle ultime tendenze , Feltrinelli, 2005, p. 248: "... a savage and reductive raffiguration dominates, which recalls distant baroque trends, or even closer to the expressionist furores of artists such as Chagall , made viable to them thanks to Antonietta Raphaël, who had known him in Paris . "
- ↑ Cf. Galleria della Cometa , history
- ↑ See his painting Awakening (ca. 1948) on Tate Collection . Accessed 24 May 2011
- ↑ Cf. note on Roaring Lion II at Mirko Balsadella and bio on Scuola Romana.it .
- ↑ For these, see also it: Wiki under Sante Monachesi and Toti Scialoja .
Literature
- Maurizio Fagiolo Dell'Arco - Valerio Rivosecchi - Emily Braun, Scuola Romana. Artisti tra le due guerre , Milan, Mazzotta, 1988 ISBN 88-202-0846-6
- Giorgio Castelfranco - Dario Durbe, La Scuola romana dal 1930 al 1945 , Rome, De Luca, 1960
- Maurizio Fagiolo Dell'Arco, Maurizio, Scuola Romana: pittura e scultura a Roma dal 1919 al 1943 , Rome, De Luca, 1986 ISBN 88-202-0829-6