900 and Quadrante: Theorizing an Interdisciplinary Aesthetic Model

Abstract

900 and Quadrante: Theorizing an Interdisciplinary Aesthetic Model The metaphor of construction, and of the artist as constructor, enjoyed considerable currency in the Fascist period and marked many artists' and critics' vision of art and of the creative process (see Cioli 2011, 204-07; Salvagnini 2000, 30-32). Art critic Mario Tinti, for instance, had in 1927 heralded a 'new architectonic era' ('una nuova era architettonica'), calling for 'an art of the people, monumental and religious' ('un'arte del popolo, monumentale e religiosa') (cited in Salvagnini 2000, 30). The Fascist artist par excellence, Mario Sironi, took architecture and the figure of the architect as the subject of several of his paintings, and subsequently theorized mural painting (Sironi 1932; Sironi et al. 1933), establishing both an intellectual and a practical bond between painting and architecture. He conceived of the role of the artist in a collectivist society such as that envisioned by Fascism, as akin to that of a constructor, building on the solid cultural traditions of the nation, work and the family (Salvagnini 2000, 31; Pontiggia 1990). Our argument here, then, is that architecture and the novel intersected and developed in particularly close conjunction as intertwined aesthetic projects grounded in a set of common principles, and working to support the Fascist political project. In the journals 900 and Quadrante, they found two crucial platforms for expression and

Constructing the Novel

“…In relation to the novel and architecture, however, modernization involved the structural transformation of the public spheres driven by social projects centring on a set of aesthetic principles associated with the very idea of modernity and championed by State patronage and the publishing industry. 11 Modernity as theory and modernization as practice were synergic responses to a set of technological innovations geared to transforming the perception of the individual (publishing, cinema and radio being the most obvious examples), which the regime could use as a means of propaganda as well as a means of turning citizens into a collective being, directed by a super-State. 12 The relationship between those two fieldsmodernity and modernization-and likewise between the novel and architecture, is often based on 'heteronomous as well as autonomous' principles and statements, which allowed for pluralism 13 within practices, often going beyond the boundaries both of State art and art for art's sake.…”

“…realism), whether in heroic and sensationalist or more intimist, memorialistic and solipsistic works. Having said this, while this attitude was evident in popular fiction, Pericles Lewis has convincingly argued that the modernist novels of Conrad, D'Annunzio, Proust and Joyce materialized their consciousness of the crisis of political, ideological and economic systems, such as liberalism and nationalism, by giving space to a wider, factual, if not explicitly historical, dimension, which ultimately provided an external means of decoding internal logics (2000,4,11).…”

Fascism and Architecture

“…Piacentini complimented him for having attempted to combine monumentalism with the pressures of social reality (Ciucci 2002(Ciucci [1989, 147; Nicoloso 2008, 75-77). However, even though Terragni's works had so far been designed to accommodate the masses, 85 according to the panel, on this occasion, his two projects, especially the second one, were worryingly influenced by abstract, rationalist, foreign models, and were too elitist in conception. 86 The gruppo Foschini (Enrico del Debbio, Arnaldo Foschini, Vittorio Morpurgo) won the competition in October 1937.…”