Reconsidering the ‘Obscene’: The Massa Marittima Mural (original) (raw)
Related papers
The great fresco painting of the Italian feminist movements
2005
Abstract In aiming to map present Italian feminist movements we have to talk of plural “feminisms”, which comprise of not just one feminist movement, but rather a variety of different actions. This dialogue piece intends to enable some of the protagonists of this movement to speak of their bonds with historical feminism, with the movement of movements (MoMo) and about their different feminist practices. Individual women and groups criss-cross each other in our mapping.
Resistance and Pride: The Murals of Orgosolo, Sardinia
State Crime Journal, 2014
The small town of Orgosolo in the mountains of Sardinia is known for its murals: hundreds of them in a town of only 5,000 inhabitants. although murals exist throughout Sardinia, those of Orgosolo are noteworthy because of their political content. This article describes the origins of the mural tradition in the events of the late 1960s and early 1970s in the town. The combination of a left-wing council and youth group, as well as the powerful influence of an art teacher, led to the start of a process that continues to this day. The murals are classified into four interrelated themes: war, resistance, ethnic pride and resonance. But most importantly, the relevance of the mural tradition is placed in the context of the rejection by local people of northern Italian stereotypes which display them as backward shepherds and bandits, wedded inexorably to tradition and the rejection of progress.
Representing Rome: Analyzing a Giacomo Lauro Print as a Window to the Past
Representation has been a contested topic within the field of art history for decades, grappling with the authenticity and independence of representation from its subject. Bringing in the ideas of E.H. Gombrich, David Summers, and philosophers such as Descartes, the concept of representations as original works of imagination and independent creativity are explored. Using the 1625 Giacomo Lauro print entitled Claudi Et Traiani Impp Admirabum Portuv Ostien Sciogria as a case study, this essay regards the print and its history, first addressing its content and then analyzing it as a work of representation, while contending with its historical inaccuracies. Viewing the print as a map to the Roman port, the ideas of Roman supremacy and nationalism, and Lauro’s own mind, one can trace back the meanings and decode the messages embedded in the engraving. Following Summer’s ideas of representation as communication, an attempt is made at unpacking the print from its historic context into the modern day, analyzing its value as a historic record of the time and place of its creation as well as the sentiments of its creator. The print, as well as the book Splendore Dell’Antica Roma Nel Quale si Rappresenta as a whole, is analyzed as a 17th century object, factoring in its role as a text created to honor Rome and the 1625 Jubilee of Urban VIII. Also bringing in the tradition of mapmaking as a method of understanding the world in contrast with the lack of accuracy in the depiction of the Port of Augustus found in the print, these issues are faced within the spectrum of representation and understood under a 21st century lens. Invoking conversation between viewers and creators, the concept of representation as intermediary is discussed, attempting to pin down its place between the subject, the viewer, and the mental images the representation invokes.
BEING FLORENTINE: A QUESTION OF IDENTITY IN THE ARTE DELLA LANA, FLORENCE
The issue of how governments and, more generally, civic offices such as the guilds developed, maintained, or changed their identities alongside political struggles and social and economic changes is investigated here. In particular, Jill Harrison (Chapter Six) investigates a little known fresco cycle that decorates the former Guild Hall of the Arte della Lana building in Florence. The Arte della Lana was one of the major guilds, established around 1266 by a group of laymen known as Padri Umiliati, who were skilled in the making of wool cloths. The guild quickly became one of the most powerful in the city, and in 1331 it was appointed to manage the financial resources granted by the government for the building of the new cathedral of S. Maria del Fiore, through the appointment of three builders in chief or Operai. The role of the guild as patron of art in relation to the fresco cycle in the Guild Hall is reconsidered here in light of the figures represented in the cycle, their iconography, and the historic and social context in which this commission took place. This chapter suggests that the fresco is a carefully devised display of sacred and allegorical figures whose aim was, on the one hand, to show the attitude of contemporary society to wealth, and on the other, advise that wealth cannot be separated from common good and justice.Harrison goes back to the roots of medieval political ideas and how this reflected on the development of the fresco cycle in the Guild Hall of the Arte della Lana by means of visual analysis and examination of relevant literature.
Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 61 (Heft III), 2019
On the basis of previously unpublished inquisitorial documents, this article reconstructs and discusses the genesis, iconography, functions, and removal of two altarpieces dedicated to the Messinese Madonna della Lettera, respectively in Rome (1642) and in Malta (1668). While the first painting is lost at present, it is possible to identify the latter with the Madonna della Lettera attributed to Mattia Preti and now preserved in the Museo Regionale Interdisciplinare di Messina. The essay demonstrates that this painting – whose provenance and date were previously unknown – was executed in 1664 for an altar in the church of Saint Francis in Valletta, which was dismantled in 1668. In both instances, the contestation and censorship of the altarpieces arose as a reaction to the multi-directional Messinese attempts to spread their hometown cult through the creation of new images that prominently visualized the letter, which is a lost and controversial contact relic. The combined examination of these two new cases offers material for a discussion of the normative role of painting and the visual arts in establishing a local cult in distant places – from Messina to Rome, Malta, and as far as China.