Novecento Italiano

Novecento Italiano
Name	Novecento Italiano
Founded	1922
Founders	Mario Sironi, Margherita Sarfatti, Anselmo Bucci
Location	Milan, Italy
Movements	Modernism, Return to Order, Neoclassicism

Novecento Italiano was an Italian artistic movement and group formed in the early 1920s that sought a renewal of figurative painting and sculpture grounded in classical continuity and national tradition. It emerged in Milan amid debates involving critics, collectors, and political figures, promoting a tempered modernity distinct from Futurism, Dada, and Surrealism. The movement's program was articulated through exhibitions, manifestos, and periodical interventions connecting artists, patrons, and institutions across Europe.

Origins and Influences

Novecento developed from interactions among artists, critics, and intellectuals in Milan, influenced by earlier currents such as the Macchiaioli, the Symbolist milieu, and the post‑First World War Return to Order advocated by figures associated with Giorgio de Chirico, Gino Severini, and Maurice Denis. Key cultural nodes included the salon of Margherita Sarfatti, links to the Pinacoteca di Brera, and exchanges with collectors like Alfredo Ravasco and dealers in Milan and Rome. International contacts connected the group to exhibitions in Paris—with ties to Paul Guillaume and Galerie L'Effort Moderne—and to debates in Berlin, Vienna, and London that involved artists such as Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Otto Dix, and Pablo Picasso. The intellectual climate included references to classical sources from Florence and archaeological interests tied to finds in Pompeii and restorations at the Vatican.

Principles and Aesthetics

The movement advocated a sober figurative language emphasizing monumentality, clear draughtsmanship, and compositional balance inspired by Michelangelo, Piero della Francesca, and Andrea Mantegna. Novecento artists rejected the fragmentation of Cubism and the mechanistic exaltation of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's Futurist program, while sometimes dialoguing with Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, and Fernand Léger. Aesthetic priorities included solidity derived from Roman sculpture, disciplined palette echoing Giotto and Masaccio, and an interest in narrative modes associated with Raphael and Caravaggio. Theoretical writings by Margherita Sarfatti framed the project against avant‑garde radicalism and in conversation with cultural policies in Mussolini's Italy; critics like Roberto Longhi and historians at the Accademia di Brera debated its claims about modernity and tradition.

Key Artists and Works

Prominent figures included Mario Sironi, whose urban and monumental paintings referenced Piazza del Duomo (Milan) and industrial settings; Anselmo Bucci with works exhibited in Venice; Achille Funi and his classically rendered compositions; Giorgio de Chirico in his metaphysical phase intersecting with the group's pursuit of timelessness; and Carlo Carrà, who moved from Futurism to more static, archaizing canvases. Other contributors encompassed Ubaldo Oppi, Massimo Campigli, Federico Zandomeneghi, Adolfo Wildt, Francesco Messina, Lucio Fontana in early realist works, Giuseppe Spirito, Guglielmo Janni, Ettore Tito, Mario Broglio, Gino Severini in later classical turnings, Aligi Sassu, Gio Ponti in decorative commissions, Enrico Prampolini in contested interactions, and sculptors such as Adolfo Wildt and Giuseppe Graziosi. Representative exhibitions featured works later acquired by institutions including the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, the Museo del Novecento (Milan), and the Galleria degli Uffizi for retrospectives.

Relationship with Fascism and Politics

Novecento's public profile intersected with the rise of Benito Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party, in part through the patronage and editing activities of Margherita Sarfatti, who maintained political and cultural ties with senior regime figures and promoted national art policy. The movement's emphasis on order and monumentality aligned with state preferences for monumental imagery seen in projects overseen by Giuseppe Bottai and architect collaborations with Marcello Piacentini and Giovanni Michelucci. However, relationships were complex: debates involved Palmiro Togliatti-era critics, international curators from Berlin and Paris, and artists who negotiated independence or exile, such as Giorgio de Chirico's later tensions. Institutional commissions—murals, civic memorials, and exhibitions—often referenced Roman imperial iconography and ceremonial aesthetics familiar from regime propaganda, yet some members retained private experimental practices and links to émigré networks in New York and London.

Exhibitions and Institutions

Novecento organized major shows at venues including the Galleria Pesaro, the Biennale di Venezia, and gallery spaces in Milan and Rome, often curated with the involvement of Sarfatti and collectors like Margherita Sarfatti's circle and dealers such as Carlo Carrà's patrons. Institutional allies comprised the Pinacoteca di Brera, the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, municipal galleries in Milan and Turin, and later displays at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Gallery in London. Biennale participations connected Novecento artists with international movements present at the Venice Biennale, where juries included officials from the Italian Ministry of National Education and representatives of the Royal Academy in London. Exhibition catalogues, reviews in periodicals like La Stampa and Corriere della Sera, and coverage in Le Figaro and The Times shaped reception and market trajectories.

Critical Reception and Legacy

Contemporary responses ranged from acclaim in nationalist circles and support by collectors like Sergio Solmi to critique by modernist advocates such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and later reassessments by scholars including Giorgio Piccardi, Claudio Strinati, and curators at the Museo del Novecento (Milan). Postwar art historians debated Novecento's aesthetic achievements versus its political entanglements, with studies comparing it to Neue Sachlichkeit, Social Realism, and the international Interwar art scene. Legacy manifests in museum holdings at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, scholarship at the Università di Bologna and Sapienza University of Rome, and influence on mid‑20th‑century Italian architecture and decorative arts through figures like Gio Ponti and Marcello Nizzoli. Retrospectives in Paris, Milan, and New York have recontextualized works within broader narratives of European Modernism and contested cultural histories of 20th century Italy.

Category:Italian art movements