Fascist Visions

by Affron, Matthew; Antliff, Mark

• ISBN13: 9780691027388
• ISBN10: 0691027382
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-12-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Bringing together studies by art historians, historians, and political scientists, Fascist Visions explores the themes and paradigms that pervaded protofascist and fascist aesthetic discourse, cultural policy, and artistic production in France and Italy. Whether traditionalist or innovative in idiom, art functioned as the expression of fascism's ideological polarities: nihilism and idealism, modernism and antimodernism, revolution and reaction. This volume charts the unfolding of fascist aesthetics from its genesis in nationalist and antimaterialist ideologies before World War I to its full development during the interwar period and World War II. It also highlights the shared motivations of advocates of fascist aesthetics, including artists, art critics, political activists, and government officials, outside of Germany.The eight essays in this book investigate the intersection of fascist ideology and aesthetics through a wide range of historical examples. Topics include: theories of cultural regeneration in Italy from the Risorgimento to fascism; the impact of fascism upon the work of such artists and art critics as Ardengo Soffici, Mario Sironi, Valentine de Saint-Point, and Waldemar George; the theories of modernist urbanism developed by Georges Valois's Faisceau; and official sponsorship of painting and the decorative arts in Mussolini's Italy and in Vichy France. The contributors to this volume include Walter Adamson, Matthew Affron, Mark Antliff, Emily Braun, Michèle Cone, Emilio Gentile, Nancy Locke, and Marla Stone.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii	(2)
Acknowledgments	xi
Matthew Affron
Mark Antliff
Art and Fascist Ideology in France and Italy: An Introduction	3	(22)
Emilio Gentile
The Myth of National Regeneration in Italy: From Modernist Avant-Garde to Fascism	25	(21)
Walter L. Adamson
Ardengo Soffici and the Religion of Art	46	(27)
Nancy Locke
Valentine de Saint-Point and the Fascist Construction of Woman	73	(28)
Emily Braun
Mario Sironi's Urban Landscapes: The Futurist Fascist Nexus	101	(33)
Mark Antliff
La Cite francaise: Georges Valois, Le Corbusier, and Fascist Theories of Urbanism	134	(37)
Matthew Affron
Waldemar George: A Parisian Art Critic on Modernism and Fascism	171	(34)
Marla Stone
The State as Patron: Making Official Culture in Fascist Italy	205	(34)
Michele C. Cone
Decadence and Renewal in the Decorative Arts under Vichy	239	(24)
Selected Bibliography	263	(12)
Notes on the Contributors	275	(2)
Index	277