| Art of Italy |
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From the second half of the 18th century through the 19th century, Italy went through a great deal of socio-economic changes, several foreign invasions and the turbulentRisorgimento, which resulted in theItalian unification in 1861. Thus, Italian art went through a series of minor and major changes in style.
TheItalian Neoclassicism was the earliest manifestation of the general period known asNeoclassicism and lasted more than the other national variants of neoclassicism. It developed in opposition to theBaroque style around c.1750 and lasted until c.1850. Neoclassicism began around the period of the rediscovery ofPompeii and spread all over Europe as a generation of art students returned to their countries from theGrand Tour in Italy with rediscovered Greco-Roman ideals. It first centred in Rome where artists such asAntonio Canova andJacques-Louis David were active in the second half of the 18th century, before moving to Paris. Painters ofVedute, likeCanaletto andGiovanni Paolo Panini, also enjoyed a huge success during the Grand Tour.Neoclassical architecture was inspired by the Renaissance works ofPalladio and saw inLuigi Vanvitelli andFilippo Juvarra the main interpreters of the style.
Classicist literature had a great impact on theRisorgimento movement: the main figures of the period includeVittorio Alfieri,Giuseppe Parini,Vincenzo Monti andUgo Foscolo,Giacomo Leopardi andAlessandro Manzoni (nephew ofCesare Beccaria), who were also influenced by theFrench Enlightenment andGerman Romanticism. Thevirtuoso violinistPaganini and the operas ofRossini,Donnizetti,Bellini and, later,Verdi dominated the scene in Italian classical and romantic music.
The art ofFrancesco Hayez and especially that of theMacchiaioli represented a break with the classical school, which came to an end as Italy unified (seeItalian modern and contemporary art). Neoclassicism was the last Italian-born style, after theRenaissance andBaroque, to spread to all Western Art.
Just like in other parts of Europe, Italian Neoclassical art was mainly based on the principles ofAncient Roman andAncient Greek art and architecture, but also by the ItalianRenaissance architecture and its basics, such as in theVilla Capra "La Rotonda".[1] Classicism and Neoclassicism in Italian art and architecture developed during theItalian Renaissance, notably in the writings and designs ofLeon Battista Alberti and the work ofFilippo Brunelleschi. It places emphasis onsymmetry,proportion, geometry and the regularity of parts as they are demonstrated in the architecture of Classical antiquity and in particular, the architecture ofAncient Rome, of which many examples remained. Orderly arrangements ofcolumns,pilasters andlintels, as well as the use of semicircular arches, hemisphericaldomes,niches andaedicules replaced the more complex proportional systems and irregular profiles ofmedieval buildings. This style quickly spread to other Italian cities and later to the rest of continental Europe.
In thevisual arts the European movement called "neoclassicism" began in Italy around 1750 in Rome,[2] as a reaction against both the survivingBaroque andRococo styles, and as a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts ofRome, the more vague perception ("ideal") ofAncient Greek arts, and, to a lesser extent, 16th-centuryRenaissance Classicism.Indoors, neoclassicism made a discovery of the genuine classic interior, inspired by the rediscoveries atPompeii andHerculaneum, which had started in the late 1740s, but only achieved a wide audience in the 1760s, with the first luxurious volumes of tightly controlled distribution ofLe Antichità di Ercolano.
Napoleon Bonaparte, who ruled most of Italy in the early 19th century hiredAntonio Canova, one of the most influential Italian neoclassical sculptors and plastic artists to make sculptures for him, one of the most famous being that ofVenus Victrix, an allegory ofPauline Bonaparte.[2]
Italy also developed several other artistic movements in the 19th century, like theMacchiaioli, who influenced Frenchimpressionism. The city ofMilan later emerged as a major centre of 19th-century Romantic art. The city became a major European artistic centre during theRomantic period, when Milanese Romantic was influenced by the Austrians, who ruled Milan at the time. Probably the most notable of all Romantic works of art held in Milan is "The Kiss", byFrancesco Hayez, which is held in theBrera Academy.[3]
TheMacchiaioli were a group of Italian painters fromTuscany, active in the second half of the 19th century, who, breaking with the antiquated conventions taught by the Italian academies of art, painted outdoors in order to capture natural light, shade, and colour. The Macchiaioli were forerunners of theImpressionists who, beginning in the 1860s, would pursue similar aims in France. The most notable artists of this movement wereGiovanni Fattori,Silvestro Lega andTelemaco Signorini.
The movement grew from a small group of artists, many of whom had been revolutionaries in theuprisings of 1848. The artists met at theCaffè Michelangiolo in Florence throughout the 1850s to discuss art and politics. These idealistic young men, dissatisfied with the art of the academies, shared a wish to reinvigorate Italian art by emulating the bold tonal structure they admired in such old masters asRembrandt,Caravaggio andTintoretto.[4] They also found inspiration in the paintings of their French contemporaries of theBarbizon school.
They believed that areas of light and shadow, or "macchie" (literally patches or spots) were the chief components of a work of art. The word macchia was commonly used by Italian artists and critics in the 19th century to describe the sparkling quality of a drawing or painting, whether due to a sketchy and spontaneous execution or to the harmonious breadth of its overall effect.
A hostile review published on 3 November 1862 in the journalGazzetta del Popolo marks the first appearance in print of the term Macchiaioli.[5] The term carried several connotations: it mockingly implied that the artists' finished works were no more than sketches, and recalled the phrase "darsi alla macchia", meaning, idiomatically, to hide in the bushes or scrubland. The artists did, in fact, paint much of their work in these wild areas. This sense of the name also identified the artists with outlaws, reflecting the traditionalists' view that new school of artists was working outside the rules of art, according to the strict laws defining artistic expression at the time.
In its early years the new movement was ridiculed. Many of its artists died in penury, only achieving fame towards the end of the 19th century. Today the work of the Macchiaioli is much better known in Italy than elsewhere; much of the work is held, outside the public record, in private collections there.
Purismo was an Italian cultural movement which began in the 1820s. The group intended to restore and preserve language through the study of medieval authors, and such study extended to the visual arts.
Inspired by theNazarenes from Germany, the artists of Purismo rejectNeoclassicism and emulated the works ofRaphael,Giotto andFra Angelico.
The group's ideals were iterated in their manifestoDel purismo nelle arti, in 1842–43 which was written byAntonio Bianchini and co-signed byTommaso Minardi (1787–1871), the major proponent of Purismo, Nazarene co-founderFriedrich Overbeck andPietro Tenerani.
