Scuola romana orScuola di via Cavour was a 20th-centuryart movement defined by a group of painters withinExpressionism and active inRome between 1928 and 1945, and with a second phase in the mid-1950s.
In November 1927, artistsAntonietta Raphaël andMario Mafai[1] moved to No. 325 of Roman streetvia Cavour, in aSavoyan palace subsequently demolished in 1930 in order to allow thefascist construction of theNew Empire Way (currently thevia dei Fori Imperiali). The apartment's larger room was transformed into astudio.
Within a short time, this studio became a meeting point forliterati such asEnrico Falqui,Giuseppe Ungaretti,Libero de Libero,Leonardo Sinisgalli, as well as young artistsScipione,Renato Marino Mazzacurati,[2] andCorrado Cagli.
The spontaneous confluence of artists at the via Cavour studio does not appear to have been led by true and proper programmes ormanifestos, but rather by friendship, cultural syntheses and a singular pictorial cohesion. With their firm approach to Europeanexpressionism, they formally contraposed the solid and orderly painting ofneoclassic character, promoted by theReturn to order current in the 1920s, which was particularly strong in the Italian sensibility of post-World War I.
The first identification of this artistic group should be attributed toRoberto Longhi, who wrote:[3]
From its very address, I'd call this theScuola di via Cavour, where Mafai and Raphaël used to work...
and added:
An eccentric and anarchoid art that could hardly be accepted by us, but it's all the same a notable sign of today's mores.
Longhi used this definition to indicate the special work he perceived these artists to be performing within theexpressionist universe, breaking off from official art movements.[4]
During those years, painterCorrado Cagli too used the appellative ofScuola romana.[5] His critique does not linger on name identification for the "nuovi pittori romani (new Roman painters)" animating this new movement. Cagli described a spreading sensitivity and spoke of anAstro di Roma (Roman Star), affirming that was the real poetic basis of the "new Romans" :
In a primordial dawn all has to be reconsidered, and Imagination relives all wonders and trembles for all mysteries.
thus highlighting the complex and articulated Roman situation, as opposed to what Cagli called the imperatingNeoclassicism of theNovecento Italiano. TheScuola romana offered a wild painting style, expressive and disorderly, violent and with warm ochre and maroon tones. The formal rigour was replaced by a distinctly expressionist visionariness.[6]
Scipione, for instance, brought to life a sort ofRomanbaroqueexpressionism, where often decadent landscapes appear of Rome's historicalbaroque centre, populated bypriests andcardinals, seen with a vigorously expressive and hallucinated eye. Similar themes were present inRaffaele Frumenti's paintings in the second season of the Scuola, with vivid red hues and soft brush strokes.
After 1930, instead of dying out, theScuola Romana continued with various other artists of a "second season", which developed during the 1930s and matured soon after World War II. Among them wereRoberto Melli,Giovanni Stradone,Renato Marino Mazzacurati,Guglielmo Janni,Renzo Vespignani and the so-calledtonalists led byCorrado Cagli,Carlo Levi,Emanuele Cavalli andCapogrossi, all gravitating around the activities of the "Galleria della Cometa”.[7][8]
Later members included personalities such asFausto Pirandello (son of Nobel PrizeLuigi),[9]Renato Guttuso, the brothersAfro andMirko Basaldella,[10]Leoncillo Leonardi,Raffaele Frumenti,Sante Monachesi,Giovanni Omiccioli andToti Scialoja.[11]
TheVilla Torlonia in Rome hosts, in its classic "Casino Nobile", the renowned Museums ofVilla Torlonia,[12] part of the Museum System of theComune di Roma: on its 2nd floor one can visit theMuseum of the Scuola Romana, offering a comprehensive view of this art movement.
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