Visconti's SENSO: The Art of History

Abstract

This article examines Visconti's subversive use of Francesco Hayez's 1859 iconic painting, Il bacio, in Senso as an essential element of the director's critique of Risorgimento history. In particular, the article proposes that through the recontextualization of Hayez's most recognizable work, which played a fundamental role in shaping the Italian patriotic imagination in the nineteenth century, Visconti problematizes cultural and artistic representations of Risorgimento history, as well as historiographical accounts of the unification process. By juxtaposing artistic accounts of a heroic Risorgimento and his characters' story of passion and betrayal, Visconti denounces traditional representations of the independence movement as historically false and politically biased, and uncovers the discrepancies between individual actions and motivations and uncomplicated representations of the Risorgimento. Gramscian perspective on the Risorgimento. By using art as an instrument of ideological critique he also traces a new direction for Italian intellectuals and artists, by attempting to bridge the gap between aesthetics and ideology and reclaiming for “Poetry” an active role in history.

Domination over the Risorgimento: Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony in Luchino Visconti’s Senso (1954)

“…82 This carefully prepared Canova adorned the tomb of the patriot-writer Vittorio Alfieri'. 83 Antonio Canova's allegory of Italy, which he created half a century before the beginning of the Risorgimento, however, suggests Italia turrita in mourning: a young woman with a crown embodying a stylized, ancient, towered city, which was an oft-used allegory for the Italian peninsula since late Roman antiquity, representing the proud national symbol of Italy. Hayez recoded Italia turrita for the years of the Risorgimento with the second version of his painting La meditazione (L'Italia nel 1848) (1851), in which the young woman with a dishevelled, forbidding facial expression and uncovered right breast holds a book in her hand entitled Storia d'Italia.…”