Abstract
From 1923 onwards, with Mussolini's famous speech at Perugia's Accademia di Belle Arti, the regime sought to define what could be considered as State art (arte di Stato) under a new political regime. The theoretical debate on this arte di Stato took place primarily in journals with various different affiliations and followed two main lines of argument: how to define modernity and how to conceptualize realism in aesthetic terms. The first of these debates played out in 1926-28 in Critica fascista, but it reached no definite conclusions, other than encouraging artists to adopt a more constructivist, modern and less decadent attitude in their work. Similarly, the 1930s battle for modern/totalitarian realism in the arts avoided all mysticism in order to champion an idea of culture which was pragmatic and constructive, and which functioned, significantly, as a mirror for modern society and its collective (anti-liberal) spirit.
Realism at the Boundaries of Collective Subjectivity
During the 1920s and 1930s, the anti-liberal modernizing regimes based in Rome, Berlin, and Moscow created new totalitarian aesthetic apparatuses for the control of the individual/citizen in the social sphere, seeking total control, mass consensus, and the constitution of the 'new man/woman' as the foundation of a modern collective social identity. In their declarations, these anti-liberal regimes progressively adopted modernist aesthetics as the privileged paradigm for the modernization of the public sphere. However, this modernity was not simply totalitarian, and therefore largely political, but also sought to develop an aesthetic dimension, rooted in realism, which could document the cultural and political climate of the day. At the core of this fresh vision of an aesthetics meshed with politics was the Fascist New Man, a figure in equal measure individual and collective, morally sound and politically committed.
Central Hypothesis
As we shall argue, the core issue in debates on realism in 1930s aesthetics and politics, consisted in finding a means of constructing new forms of subjectivity and objectivity within a collectivist and totalitarian understanding of the real.
General Principles
1. 'L'arte di Stato': Modernity and Modernization
During the Fascist period, the pages of literary journals were filled with animated debates on State Art.These debates were at once theoretical and, often, political, and encouraged a process of rationalization of current artistic practices both in terms of technique and thematic repertoire and in light of a shared sense of cultural modernity and a desire for social modernization. In order to represent the new Fascist Italy, the new Italian novel in particular had to be reconstructed through a process of rationalization of its content, which would henceforth be in touch with the everyday. In 1930s Italy, realism is a combination of the modernist narrative technique of the interior monologue as well as a frustrated desire of becoming real and reach a wider audience. The regime identified itself artistically with artworks which could portray modernity and tradition simultaneously: the likes of Margherita Sarfatti's Novecento movement, with Mario Sironi, Achille Funi, Pippo Rizzi, Corrado Cagli; the second avant-garde, with Filippo Marinetti adding a popular and sometimes monumental dimension to futurism; Bontempelli and Pirandello's theatre; and, of course, the films of Alberto Camerini, Alessandro Balsetti and Umberto Barbaro. Such projects epitomised the idea of arte di Stato because, through the support of the publishing industry and the system of artistic patronage, they sought to reach both popular and elite circles. Moreover, they presented themselves as representative of the collective sense of the individual experience. L' arte di Stato had to be modern and international but also in touch with the national tradition and the everyday reality of citizens' lives (while also, of course, obeying its own moral imperatives).
2. The Boundaries of Realism: Constructing Collective Subjectivities
The regime placed great emphasis on the relationship between the elite and the popular (compared to the relationship championed by liberalism, which was defined by an individualist attitude towards the real and the public domain), in such a way as to redefine the understanding of subjectivity in a rapidly changing society. Owing to the accent they established within the public sphere, the anti-bourgeois collective forms of subjectivity planned by the dictatorships in the 1930s played a fundamental part in defining and documenting a reconceptualized form of objectivity. Realism in the 1930s was 'popular-heroic/eroico-popolare', since it had to address the reality of the ordinary people living under a new form of political regime, which functioned as both a political and an aesthetic force. In aesthetic terms, such a shift resulted in simplified stylistic patterns and more articulated narrative structures, or in excessive reflection on the boundaries between the subject and its objectivity, such as in the works of the Novecento movement (Achille Funi, Mario Sironi), in the metaphysical avant-garde of Vinicio Palladini and Pippo Rizzo, in the scuola romana of Corrado Cagli or in the novels of Alberto Moravia, Umberto Barbaro, Dino Buzzati, Alba de Cespedes, Umberto Fracchia, Aldo Palazzeschi, Mario Soldati, Enrico Emanuelli, Alessandro Bonsanti, and Corrado Alvaro.