The State of the Art. Fascism and Cultural Legitimation (original) (raw)
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Lo Stato dell’arte. Fascismo e legittimazione culturale
Scienza Politica Per Una Storia Delle Dottrine, 2013
Abbiamo rivolto una serie di domande a Monica Cioli e David Rifkind autori di due importanti volumi sul modo in cui rispettivamente l'arte e l'architettura hanno assunto uno specifico significato politico sotto il fascismo. Ne è uscito un dialogo che mostra come il rapporto tra fascismo e arte non è caratterizzato da una mera appropriazione o da uno sfruttamento reciprocamente funzionale tra artista o architetto e regime fascista. L'arte prepara un'appropriazione specifica della tecnica e introduce all'antropologia politica dell'uomo fascista. Allo stesso modo l'architettura appronta un ordinamento degli spazi urbani coerente e necessaria per la gerarchia dell'ordine della società corporata. PAROLE CHIAVE: Fascismo; arti figurative; architettura; Stato; corporativismo Lo Stato dell'arte. Fascismo e legittimazione culturale The State of the Art. Fascism and Cultural Legitimation
Lo Stato dell’arte. Fascismo e legittimazione culturale’, Scienza & Politica, 48 (2013), 135-148
We asked a series of questions to Monica Cioli and David Rifkind, authors of two important books which focus on the process that enabled art and architecture to acquire a specific political meaning under fascism. The outcome is a dialogue that shows how the relationship between fascism and art is not characterized by a mere appropria- tion or a mutually functional exploitation between the artist or the architect and the fascist regime. Art prepares a specific appropriation of technology and serves to introduce the political anthropology of the fascist man. Similar- ly, architecture establishes an organization of urban spaces coherent and necessary to the hierarchical order of the corporatist society.
Fascism in Italian Culture: 1945-2023 / Il fascismo nella cultural italiana: 1945-2023
Annali d'Italianistica 41 2023
Annalid'italianistica,Inc., wasfounded at theUniversityofNotre Dame in 1983 andw as sponsoredby theD epartmento fR omance Studiesa tt he University of NorthC arolinaa tC hapelH illf rom1 989u ntil 2017.H ostedb yJSTOR, Annali d'italianistica is an independentjournal of ItalianStudies managedand editedby an internationalteamofscholars. Annali is listed amongthe toptierjournals(class A, area 10)bythe ItalianNationalAgencyfor theEvaluationofUniversitiesand Research Institutes(ANVUR). It is listed in theEuropeanReference Indexfor the Humanities andS ocialS ciences(ERIH PLUS). It is listed in theM LA InternationalB ibliography.I ti samember of theT he Councilo fE ditors of LearnedJournals(CELJ).
To answer whether there is such a thing as a “fascist aesthetic”, we can turn to the clearest manifestations highlighted by Walter Benjamin, such as the totalitarian symptoms of an aestheticisation of politics, or the mechanised rituals of a “Mass Ornament” that organise a multiplicity of fragments under the image of a homogenized mass reflecting the cult of rationalist efficiency (Kracauer 1995, 75-88). As is frequently stated in the literature, these aesthetic ideas were materialised in mass entertainment and on the stage and ultimately became the defining symbol of dictatorial regimes. However, these forms of “mass reproduction” cannot be ascribed exclusively to fascist ideological rituals of affirmation. Mass expression also forms part of contemporary rituals of national affirmation, such as the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, military parades in democratic nations, or the Dionysian immersion of a Rammstein concert (a band often criticised for its flirtations with neo-Nazi aesthetics). Slavoj Zizek (2010, 373-386) examines this aestheticisation of mass joy as a ritual in which the jouissance is expressed as a neutral substance and only in a second instance is it instrumentalised for political purposes, leaving behind the pleasure in itself. The fascist imaginary not only fuelled the cult of efficiency derived from a rationalist modern mass society but also alluded to the primitive joy of belonging. It is here that we find the link between the fascist aesthetic tradition and the irrationalist tendencies of nineteenth-century Romanticism and the fin-de-siècle imaginary. The affirmative aesthetic of belonging, though shared with ideologies other than the radical right, was easily transferred between the different ideological factions of the early twentieth century thanks to its powerful criticism of the excesses of rationalism. In this sense, considering that anti-liberalism was not a “parenthesis in European history” (Benedetto Croce 1943) but a common parameter in ideologies critical of the failure of modernity (Mazower 2001; Sternhell, Sznajder and Asheri 1994), we will analyse the genealogy of the fascist aesthetic through the German case and the reworking of the community myth. This study will attempt to chart the continuity between various periods of German history, built around a belief in aesthetic and artistic redemption and the notion of culture as a political project. To analyse the network of discourses that construct the concept of community as a pre-rational impulse, we explore those discourses that are crystallised in artistic and cultural expressions close to the Romantic programme and its preoccupations with the return to the lost community and the refounding of unifying myths (Nietzsche, Böcklin). Through this analysis we establish links with the later neo-pagan and regenerative ideals of völkish movements (Fidus) and the mysticism of the Konservative Revolution. Ultimately, we highlight the inherent contradictions in the underlying notion of modernity in European fascism. Consequently, leaving to one side the question of whether there is such a thing as a purely fascist aesthetic, the aim of this study is to determine how some of the aesthetic ideas assimilated and refined by the Third Reich were configured, focusing on their belonging to a tradition forged in the late eighteenth century as a critical response to the Enlightenment. In our analysis we shall endeavour to shed light on the inherent contradictions within those processes that, as in any totalitarian regime, establish relationships of affirmation-rejection and exaltation-regression with Modernity.
In the following article we will illustrate some of the most actual and fertile tendencies in the study of Italian fascism and of its relationship to culture. We will start off from the viewpoint that fascism in Italy succeeded in obtaining a high degree of popular support. Following Renzo De Felice, it could be argued that mass consenso (consensus) was crucial to Mussolini’s survival. Presenting itself as the only choice for the new Italy, fascism did thus in a very real sense reach a certain degree of –albeit unstable- gramscian egemonia (hegemony). The latter was in its turn the consequence not only of the use of force, but also of a careful orchestration of public life and, on a higher level, of aesthetics, of culture. Hence, in a second part of our study, we will turn to some of the most interesting, so-called ‘culturalist’, studies of fascist, mostly visual, culture. We will conclude with an analysis of Italian fascism as a form of secular myth, as a political religion in which the mentioned fascist aesthetics also played a crucial role.
Through a variety of sources, both written and visual, this paper traces the means by which Italian fascism appropriated and propagandised the following three aspects of a purported heritage of Roman antiquity (the so-called myth of romanità): aspects of academic and popular discourse regarding the notion of empire; the omnipresence of the ‘revolutionary’ and combative Julius Caesar; and a generalised aesthetic use of antiquity. During the ventennio fascista, these latter themes were central to the way in which fascism actively appropriated the heritage of ancient Rome; they have been chosen in order to illustrate the applicability of two aspects of fascism which I would first like to discuss, i.e. the fascist ‘sacralization of politics’, and a certain fascist modernism. In this short study, I situate Italian fascism, both marked and shaped by its relationship with the past and the ensuing tension between epochs and historical protagonists, history and myth, as a ‘secular’ or ‘political religion’, as a ‘biopolitical’ ideology the purpose of which was -at least ideally-, the spiritual and physical renewal of the nation. Hence, before treating the aforementioned features of fascist romanità, I will provide a concise historiographical discussion of the in my opinion most fruitful recent movements in the historiography of fascism; in doing so, I will illustrate the way in which the regime’s religious thrust and ‘cultic outlook’, rooted in, and arguably created by, its mythical predisposition, generated a heightened interest in aesthetics, and a ‘biopolitical’ desire to ‘forge’ the bodies and minds of the Italian people. In this sense, fascism can be considered as a form of activist ‘culture’ in its own regard, a viewpoint rarely linked to the Italian fascist use of antiquity.
2019
Session: La trasmissione culturale durante il Ventennio Illustrazione e giornalismo come critica d’arte. Scipione e Mafai, «L’Italia Letteraria» e il racconto dell’arte europea nell’Italia fascista degli anni Trenta. Tra 1930 e 1931, Mario Mafai e Scipione (Gino Bonichi), protagonisti della Scuola di via Cavour (Scuola romana), il cui sviluppo fu seguito da vicino da Roberto Longhi, cominciano a collaborare continuativamente, l’uno come corrispondente da Parigi e l’altro come illustratore, con «L’Italia letteraria». Mafai firma importanti articoli dove è chiara l’adesione ad alcuni principi critici maturati all’interno del dibattito sull’arte e il Fascismo a partire dagli anni Venti. Parallelamente Scipione esegue e pubblica numerose illustrazioni satiriche, influenzate nello stile da precise personalità artistiche europee e dedicate a fatti e scenari nazionali e internazionali (Biennale, Quadriennale, Surrealismo, Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma, Reale Accademia d’Italia…) dove la sua capacità critica trova un’inaspettata e originale sintesi grafico-narrativa. Entrambi i contributi dei pittori romani meritano un più vasto approfondimento, ancora tralasciato dagli studi specialistici, e vanno inquadrati nell’ampio contesto culturale del Ventennio dai quali risultano profondamente influenzati. Le sortite critiche di Mafai e Scipione infatti, posseggono un alto valore esemplificativo all’interno del complesso sistema culturale dell’Italia entre-deux-guerres. L’intervento che propongo è quindi volto a dimostrare come la politica culturale fascista, col sostegno di molti intellettuali e artisti, fosse stata in grado, già nel 1930, di favorire l’elaborazione e l’applicazione di particolari strategie culturali e critiche finalizzate all’affermazione di un “primato” italiano anche in campo artistico-contemporaneo, per nulla disinteressato al contesto europeo. Illustration and journalism as art critic. Scipione and Mafai, «L’Italia Letteraria» and the story of European art in the fascist Italy of the thirties. Between 1930 and 1931, Mario Mafai and Scipione (Gino Bonichi), leaders of the Scuola di Via Cavour (Scuola Romana) - whose development was closely followed by Roberto Longhi – start to collaborate continuously with the review «L’Italia Letteraria». Mafai as correspondent from Paris and Scipione as illustrator. The first one signs important articles where it is clear his adherence to some critical principles matured in the debate on art and Fascism since the 1920s. At the same time Scipione performs and publishes numerous satirical illustrations, influenced by precise European artistic personalities and dedicated to national and international facts and scenarios (Bienniale of Venice, Quadrenniale of Rome, Surrealism, Gallery of Modern Art of Rome, Royal Academy of Italy …) where his critical ability finds an unexpected and original graphic-narrative synthesis. Both the contributions of the Roman painters deserve a broader study, still ignored by specialistic studies, and should be seen in the broad cultural context of the Fascist epoch from which they are deeply influenced. Mafai’s articles and Scipione’s illustrations, in fact, have an high exemplary value within the complex cultural system of the Italian entre-deux-guerres. The speech I propose is therefore aimed at demonstrating how the fascist cultural policy, with the support of many intellectuals and artists, was able, already in 1930, to promote the elaboration and the application of particular cultural and critical strategies aimed at the affirmation of an Italian "primacy" in the artistic-contemporary field, also in the European context.