M.F.Husain Exhibition, DAG, India

Recently, while in India for a brief visit, I was able to visit the amazing exhibition of Maqbool Fida Husain's artworks organised at the DAG art gallery in Delhi.

Husain saheb was associated with the socialist party of India and as a child, I had met him a few times, as my father's friend. While walking with him one evening in Connaught Place in Delhi, I had once asked my father, "Why does he walk bare-feet, can't he buy some chappals?" I don't remember if my father had answered my question.  I have already written about him earlier on this blog. I love his art.

In this post I want to share the 10 artworks of Husain saheb which I liked in the DAG exhibition. (You can click on the pictures to enlarge them)

 1. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawahar Lal Nehru: I think that like Lohia and other socialists, Husain saheb was a little critical of Pandit Nehru, the first prime minister of Independent India in 1947. The painting above shows, Mahatma Gandhi turning his back and going away, while Pandit Nehru arrives triumphant like a bridegroom on a horse. This refers to the eve of India's independence, when Gandhi ji had gone to Noakhali to try to stop the riots caused by India's partition, while Nehru gave his famous speech in India's parliament, "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge ..."

2. Indian Flag and Mahatma Gandhi: This is another painting that shows Gandhi ji (below). It has a background of the Indian flag painted over a background of mountains and soldiers with rifles. Gandhi ji is shown sitting closer to the bottom of the central white part, partly hidden by a mountain. The blue Ashoka chakra of the flag can also be seen as a symbol of his spinning wheel (charkha).

At the same time, that blue chakra seems like a spider-web, perhaps to show that Indian republic had chosen to ignore Gandhi ji?

or perhaps, it is not Gandhi ji, but a representation of the China-India war? What do you think?

3. Durga: The third political painting among the works I have chosen, represents Indira Gandhi after the India-Pakistan war in 1971 and the formation of Bangladesh (below). Husain saheb had expressed his admiration for the firm role played by India to host millions of refugees coming from Bangladesh and the help given by Indian army in its liberation, by a series of paintings where India's PM Mrs Indira Gandhi was shown as the goddess Durga, represented by the tiger.

It is a coincidence that today (16 December) is an anniversary of the surrender of Pakistani army to India during this war. The painting also has the famous yellow-blue combination used by Husain in many of his works.

4. Mother Teresa: The fourth work that I have chosen is titled 'Mother Teresa'. Husain saheb had painted Mother Teresa many times. I like this painting, where she is shown through her blue-bordered sari while the persons she cared-for, is represented by a dying man (below).

At the same time, the painting is symbolic of India and its flag with parts in saffron and green, so that the white sari and its blue border can be seen as the white stripe and the blue chakra of the flag.

It is a diptych (two paintings joined together to compose a whole). The grey background seems to express the despair of the poor in the years following India's independence.

5. The Two Maqbools: For me, this was one of his most intriguing works in this exhibition. It was a part of a series of paintings on different religions where he had tried to represent each religion by its key messages and ideas.

There are two Husain sahebs depicted in this painting. The one on the left, has a dark shadow and something written in Urdu below it. I think that the shadow and the words express the physical persona of Husain saheb and his Muslim identity. The second figure, slightly behind and to the right, has his paintings behind him and perhaps represents the artist Husain saheb. The two figures are joined at the heart by a chakra.

The black-ink design is partly overlaid by a block of saffron-yellow square, I am not sure about its significance.

I am very curious to hear about the meaning of the words written in Urdu. If someone can read them (click on the picture to enlarge it), do write to me in the comments below.

6. Self-Portrait of the Artist: This is a more joyful self-portrait, where Husain saheb is surrounded by his favourite themes, which he had painted repeatedly during his life - Mother Teresa, the horses, Ganapati, the poor ...

I wonder why did he choose to depict himself in a military uniform with medals pinned to his chest in this painting? May be he saw himself as a soldier-artist on a quest to depict the soul of India? You can also see his bare feet in all his self-portraits.

7. Artist and the family portrait: This is another of his self-portrait as an artist where he shows himself painting the portrait of a family. Behind the family sitting on a sofa, some paintings of Husain saheb including an elephant and some horses can be seen. Is it his own family, where a child version of him is sitting on the ground in front? (Though the family looks more modern in setting and clothes).

Or perhaps, it is the family of his son and the boy with the yellow shirt is his grandson? What do you think? May be, it depicts his exile to Qatar in his final years?

 8. The autobiography: This is a pictorial autobiography of Husain saheb, which has a comic-book kind of quality (below).

On the top left, it has "A for Abdul" from Pandharpur in Maharashtra (where Husain was born), who sold and repaired oil lamps. Along the oil lamps, he has designed 2 hands raised in prayer. Perhaps Abdul was a childhood friend? or perhaps his father?

Then he has "F for Fida", the time-keeper in a textile mill in Indore. Was that an uncle or a beloved relative with whom he had stayed for some time?

"Z is for Zainab", his mother, her head covered, shown with an open book in front, denoting traditional family values of piety. Finally, he himself is there as "M for Maqbool", the painter as a young man, already bare-feet.

Apart from the horses, denoted as "H for Husain" (probably representing the importance of his art for him), the lower-half of the canvas also has the figure of his step-mother Shireen, who is shown younger, her head uncovered, sitting down relaxed with a hand-fan, that has a crescent moon on it. She seems to be the opposite of his mother's image. I don't know if the crescent moon means that she had left for Pakistan after partition?

I also wonder why he has avoided showing or his father or not specifying his father in this painting?

9. The Arrival: This painting was part of a group titled the Nudes and I chose this one to represent the wonderful use of blues and bright yellows in many of his paintings, which I love and which always make me think of Van Gogh.

This painting has 3 female figures, one front-facing and two seen from the back. The upper half of the main figure is nude and her face is partially covered by a couple of masks or moons. It was titled Arrival.

 10. Horses on a red background: The last painting of Husain saheb for this post is his favourite subject, "H for Husain and H for horses". I have seen some of his other horses-related artworks which I liked more, but in this exhibition, there were few horses. The blood-red background and the frightened-desperate expressions of the animals, make me feel a little uneasy, therefore I won't put this painting in my house.

However, I have included it in my list because it was his most loved theme.

Conclusions

I love Husain saheb's art. While preparing this post, by chance I came across a book by the socialist party leader Dr Ram Manohar Lohia for which Husain saheb had designed the book cover (below). When I saw it, I thought that it was a sign from him that he likes this post (or so I would like to believe!) I hope that you will enjoy reading it, as much as I have enjoyed putting it together.

*****

#mfhusain #maqboolfidahusain #dag #artexhibition

Watercolours of Moreno dalla Vecchia

I love admiring paintings and sculptures. Among the different styles of paintings, my favourite is watercolours. This post is about a watercolour artist from Schio (VI), Moreno dalla Vecchia, who is also the president of the Schio's association of artists.

Recently I talked to Moreno during an exhibition of local artists held at Toaldi-Capra palace in the city centre.

Moreno's Artistic Evolution

Moreno loved art ever since he can remember. Seeing his artistic skills, his teachers suggested that he should study art. Thus, after completing middle school, in late 1960s he decided to join the art school in Padova. He studied there for five years.

He followed it for another 2-years' course for teaching art. However he decided to not to work as a teacher, instead he chose to work in public administration. Moreno retired four years ago from his public administration job. During his working life, being an artist was a parallel life for him. He feels that having a separate job allowed him to be more independent in his artistic evolution because he didn't need to earn from his art.

He has continued to learn and practice art ever since. For example, after completing art school, for about 10 years, he joined an art group in Vicenza called La Soffitta, created by Otello de Maria. Here, artists can meet, talk, and learn from each other. In this period, he experimented with oils, design and water-colours. He said, "Initially I was afraid of water-colours, I can't explain why but I was hesitant to try it. However, once I started to work with water-colours, I never stopped, I have continued to work with this medium." 

Moreno had started with oil paintings, and experimented with other techniques including acrylic, tempera, graffite and frescoes, before coming to water-colours. He has even taught oil painting and likes oil paintings.

Regarding his approach to water-colour painting, he said, "Now I am trying to get away from using photographs, to a slightly more real depiction of my subjects. I am thinking of this new approach but it is not yet very clear. Usually, when we paint we follow our mental images and not the reality of things as they are."

Artists' Association of Schio

Scledense Artists' group is about 50 years old. It did not even have a room and used to
meet in a bar. It is a space for meeting, talking and supporting each other. In June each year, the city and Scledense artists traditionally organise an open-air art exhibition called Sareo Art Festival. At the same time, they organise a thematic art competition for the primary and middle schools of Schio.

About the activities of their association, Moreno explained, "With time, other initiatives were added to Sareo festival, such as organisation of exhibitions in different city-spaces such as the Toaldi-Capra Palace. When Schio had the orchids and flowers exhibition, we also participated by having an exhibition on art about flowers. For example, the present exhibition has 5 artists from the city. Then, we have another initiative planned for Christmas and the end of year, which will focus on still-life."

There was a time when this group had 80 members, but now they are much less, around 30 persons and Moreno dalla Vecchia is its president. For him, it was important to be a part of this group since it kept alive his interest in art by getting new ideas, learning from others. He said, "We organised initiatives, we displayed our art, I also took part in some art competitions."

Art Courses in Schio

After completing his studies, Moreno came back to Schio, and he joined the Artists' group. One of his first initiative was to organise art courses. Together with another artist, Moreno organised an evening course for design and painting.

He said, "Around 15 persons came to the first course, sometimes they had no idea about art. The course lasted five evenings. Later on, I became the president of our association and started organising solo courses on water-colours. Some of my students have grown to become good artists. For example, Mari Baldissarotto, who is also a part of this exhibition, was one of my students, who has become a wonderful artist."

In Conclusion

Every time I meet persons like Moreno, who have cultivated a passion for all their lives alongside a 9-to-5 daily job, I feel a great admiration for them. There are so many others who say that they did not get time to do what they really wanted in their lives, because they had a full-time job.

I am sure that persons like Moreno, need to make sacrifices for keeping alive their passion. At the same time, their dedication to their passion means that their families get lesser time and attention. It would have been an interesting theme to discuss with him, however, I did not talk about it to Moreno. 

*****

Weaving Emotions & Relationships Through Photography

Anastasia Moro, known in art as A.MO., with the Metamorfosi Gallery Association in Vicenza, are part of an exhibition called Tessere La Storia (Weaving the History) being held at Spazio Shed in Schio (VI) from 4th till 20th October 2024.

A.MO. was a resident artist invited to Schio earlier this year, when she visited various places and interacted with people from the city. This exhibition is a result of that experience.

The Artist: Anastasia Moro

A.MO. studied at the art school in Padova and graduated from the Inst. of Fine Arts in Venice. She now has her art studio in Borgo Veneto near Montagnana (PD). She is interested in searching for ancient artistic traditions and experimenting with them. She has been experimenting with different materials and forms.

Her work for this exhibition is a continuation of something she had started in 2023, when she had used photographs of persons' faces by weaving and mixing them together to create  collage of relationships. These works were part of an exhibition called Sacre Relazioni (Sacred Relations), held in Vicenza the final quarter of 2023.

The exhibition in Schio, goes a step further by bringing in specific places, weaving and mixing them together and exploring their relationships.

Metamorfosi Gallery Association

It is a cultural association, born in 2011 with the idea of promoting the work of local artists active in visual arts and graphics, and organises exhibitions and events. They have been part of different interesting artistic events, mainly around Vicenza and Padova. You can check their webpage and their Facebook page for more information.

Tessere La Storia Exhibition in Schio (VI), Italy

Spazio Shed is an old wool factor, converted into a big exhibition space. A.MO.'s exhibition has a mix of some giant works and some smaller works. At the same time, it is also possible to see the works created for the exhibition held in Vicenza in 2023.

I loved the sensations and feeling evoked by A.MO.'s works. Bringing together of rectangular pieces of images to compose a bigger image, reminded me of Eva Trentin's works, but a deeper look showed that the similarity between the two artists is only superficial, they come from different directions and explore different spaces.

Anastasia explained that she weaves together and mixes two black-and-white
photographs till she gets the effect that she desires. To this mix, she sometimes add silver strips, so that they can reflect the viewers and make them a part of the relationship. Sometimes, the two photographs are of the same subject, may be from different angles, at other times she can bring together two different subjects.

During her Schio-residency, she stayed at San Francesco church building, thus this building and its surroundings appear in more than one of her art-works. Usually, she starts with an idea of the effect she wants to achieve in her mind and then experiments till she gets there. She does not use digital photo-manipulation in her works.

Among her art-works presented with this post, I especially love the ones related to Mother Bakhita monument and the one in the abandoned hall of Fabbrica Alta with the papier-meché heads created for the last carnival of Schio. 

In the End

I think that it is very interesting to have an artist in residence for creating site-specific art that links with specific sites and persons in the city and gives the residents a new vision and understanding of their familiar spaces.

I found Anastasia's art-works very striking during the exhibition because of their power to evoke strong sensations and emotions. At the same time, I like looking at their high-resolution pictures for micro-views of specific pieces to understand how light and darkness interact and stimulate deeper feelings.

After living in Schio for so many years, it is refreshing to see the familiar buildings, monuments and spaces in unexpected and unfamiliar ways.

***

#photo_exhibition #installations #anastasiamoro #metamorfosi_gallery #schio_art

Portrait of an Artist: Mauro Marzari

Our little town has many public spaces for art and culture events. These continue to provide me with opportunities to discover new artists.

During a recent evening walk in the city centre, I came across the poster of an art exhibition by local artists at the Toaldi-Capra Palace and I immediately decided to take a look. Apart from some lovely watercolours, the exhibition had a few collages with mixed materials, which immediately caught my attention. All the exhibits were without titles or names of the artists. Thus, I went to ask information about the artist of the collages and discovered that he was present in the room. This is how I met Mauro Marzari, the "reluctant" artist of those collages.

This post presents my short conversation with him.

Artistic Journey of Mauro Marzari

Mauro is from Piovene Rocchette, a small town located some 7-8 km from Schio. Mauro has retired after a lifetime of working in public administration.

He explained that he was always interested in arts, and he dabbled in oil paintings. However, he decided to be sensible and look for a stable job, and not try to become an artist.

Many years later, when his family responsibilities were done, he decided to go back to his first love, the arts and joined a four years' degree course in arts at an evening course run by the Institute of Arts in Schio, while continuing to work full-time. The course gave him an opportunity to learn and experiment with different painting and sculpture techniques, and discover his own ideas about the kind of art he wanted to create.

The 5 works of Mauro, that I saw in the exhibition, all have a distinct style - they are collages with acrylics and paper. I liked all the 4 works and I think that I can look at them for long time and discover new details. My favourite is the canvass with a predominant blue colour (below).

Becoming an Artist

While talking to him, it came out that he does not feel that he can define himself as an artist, though he loves art and spends a lot of time making art. He feels that artists are persons who have dedicated their lives to the craft and have suffered all the hardships of the life for their art. About himself, he feels that he had a comfortable life and came to art when he was stable and did not have financial and family worries. Thus, he never suffered for his art.

This discussion reminded me of my feelings of being an imposter as an "Indian writer" at the Grinzane Awards in Turin in 2007, which had a focus on Indian writers and I had collaborated with them for inviting some Hindi writers. At that time, I had written a few stories and ran blogs in Hindi, English and Italian, but I did not have a book to my name and for me that was the criteria for being a writer. Now that I have completed my second novel, I feel more comfortable in being called a writer.

In the End

I loved Mauro's works. I hope that he can continue to find joy in his art and continue to develop and explore new areas as an artist.

In the end it does not matter the label we give ourselves or the labels others give us. In this era of attention-hungry influencers and publicity-peddlers, it is good to be humble and insecure, and enjoy what we do without feeling the need to show-off. 

***

#arts #artists #schio #palazzotoaldicapra #schio_arts #mauro_marzini

Promoting Inclusion: Photo-Exhibition

Recently Toaldi-Capri palace in Schio had a photo-exhibition of two photographers, Tommaso and Filippo, organised by a local association working for persons with disabilities, called "Against Exclusion - Association ODV".

I visited this exhibition and had a brief talk with one of the photographers, Tommaso Frinzi. I want to share a few impressions from this experience. The images used in this post are all from the exhibition.

Against Exclusion - Association ODV

Let me start with a brief presentation of the organisation behind this initiative. It is based in Schio (VI) in the Veneto region in the north-east of Italy. It started in 1984, by individuals and families wishing to support social inclusion of persons with disabilities. Thus, this year they have completed 40 years.

 It is active in areas such as sports, leisure activities, independent living, leisure, and community-building.

Talking to Tommaso Frinzi

Thirty-three year old Tommaso lives in Magre area of Schio. He discovered his passion for photography about one year ago. Last Christmas, he received a Canon camera and since then, has been doing self-learning about photography through YouTube videos.

He met Filippo, his friend photographer at an event organised by the association and discovered that they both shared the same passion. 

Tommaso loves taking pictures of the nature, animals and birds. When asked to choose one favourite picture among his works, he chose the image of a seagull against the sky with clouds tinged orange by the setting sun. He explained this choice by saying that the flying seagull represents freedom and he likes the orange glow of the image.

He downloads his images on his computer and knows simple post-production, especially the software included in his camera.

Photographs in the Exhibition

I feel that often photographers feel intimidated to take pictures of persons with disabilities, because they are afraid of promoting stereotypes and of being accused of voyeurism.

However, Tommaso and Filippo, have a lot of pictures of other persons with disabilities while they are playing or talking to friends or enjoying themselves. You can feel that for them, these are pictures of their friends, living their lives like everyone else.

They are more unselfconscious in the way they depict disabilities and they are not aiming to give any specific social message or to create awareness about something. I think that this is the strength of their specific point-of-view in their images - letting us enter and see their world, the way they themselves see it. 

They have decided not to label the names of the two photographers on their images, so I am not sure who took which pictures. I can understand the reasons behind this choice, and yet I feel that this denies them the full satisfaction of being artists.

They are both artists, each with his own way of capturing the world through the camera, and saying this explicitly allows each of them to claim a specific space.

Conclusions

Finally, I like the idea of using arts and photography to create awareness about disability issues and persons with disabilities. I like it even more, when the artists and photographers themselves are persons with disabilities and their art expresses their own visions of the world.

***

Art Exhibition - Visioni d'Arte

The art exhibition titled Marcopolo Travels - Visioni d'Arte was held at Palazzo Toaldi-Capra in Schio recently. It was curated and organised by Roberto Settin, who represents different artists and organises public exhibitions to sell their works.

This year is the 700th anniversary of the death of Italian merchant-traveller Marco Polo and thus different events have been organised in Italy on the theme of travel and journeys, especially in the Veneto region. It was also the theme of the art-exhibition of Visioni d'Arte.

Roberto Settin and his agency Visioni d'Arte

I had a brief talk with Roberto at the exhibition. He started this agency Visioni d'Arte in Bassano del Grappa during the shut-downs due to the Covid epidemic. He felt that he knew about the artists, the way the art markets work and has the international connections, so he can help artists to have viable strategies for selling their works.

To explain, how he can help artists, he gave the example of understanding the value of the art. He said that sometimes, new artists have unrealistic expectations about the kind of money they can get for their work and he helps them to have more realistic ideas. Often new artists can just manage to cover the cost of their materials and gain a small margin. Having their names and works in an exhibition-catalogue increases the value of their work over time.

To present their art-works in such an event, the artists need to contribute to the costs of organising the exhibition. For an exhibition in a small town like Schio, the costs are much less, compared to exhibitions in big towns like Venice or Milan. At the same time, small towns have lesser visitors and less sales.

Roberto is also an artist. He explained that the orange lion placed outside the exhibition hall was his creation. Roberto can be contacted through his Facebook page.

Art-Works in the Exhibition

The art-works in the exhibition were on different themes and many were not directly about travel, unless we think of travel as flights of fantasy and imagination. I want to briefly mention a few art-works from this exhibition, which I liked.

Let me start with 2 oil paintings using spatula - Rose in black and white by Annalisa Trento and In flight by Bianca Mengotti.

 

Marco Eracli, an artist based in Florence,  had 4 works in the exhibition, using acrylic with mixed techniques, that gives a wonderful texture to his work. Among all of them, I liked most the art-work titled Star-dust. Carlotta Castelletti also used acrylic but she used the wall-paper fabric for her striking work titled Madam.

Antonio Miatto does sculptures and collages. Among his works, I liked his collage titled "The Sea" and the wood-metal sculpture of the fish with a hole, titled "Without a heart". 

I liked the 3 oil-on-canvass paintings - 2 of them by Mara Zanchetta - "Freedom" with its red and black colour scheme and "Hair-curlers" with a feisty looking woman. The third one was "Hathor" by Monia Sansa.

The mixed material work by Cristiano Sandonà, uses some synthetic resin materials mixed with acrylic on glass - his work titled "For You" was simple and evocative. I also liked the mixed material work with wood and other recovered materials titled "Diversity is not the enemy" by Mattia Tegon.

Conclusions

I feel that art is very subjective, even more so, when the artists vary so much in their subjects, techniques and materials. Thus, deciding awards or who is the best, does not make sense to me.

Another aspect is liking some art-work at an intellectual level. It is another thing to decide which art-work I would like in my room, so that I can look at it daily.

From this point of view, I think that I would like the works of 3 women artists on my wall in my room - Bianca Mengotti, Carlotta Castelletti and Monia Sansa. At an intellectual and aesthetic level, I also like the works of Marco Eracli and Mara Zanchetta.

Among the art-works presented here, which ones do you like most? Write in the comments below.

***

Art from the Fascism Era

The art and architecture are influenced by the dominating ideologies of their times. The rise of fascist ideologies in Italy during 1920s and 30s, had influenced the art and architecture from that period.

Recently, I had an opportunity to visit an exhibition on this theme at MART museum in Rovereto (Italy). The image below shows the sculpture of a man at the exhibition entrance.

In this post, I want to share about some exhibits from this exhibition. There were hundreds of art-works including paintings, sculptures, posters, photographs and models in this exhibition. For convenience, I have sub-divided a few examples of those in 3 groups - influence of fascism on the arts, representations of Mussolini and the end of fascism.

You can click on the images of this post for a bigger view.

Art from the Fascist Era or the Fascist Art?

Some artists believe in the ideology and thus, their creative expressions are aligned with the ideals of that era. Other artists may not believe in the ideology but can be forced to follow the dominant dictates of that ideology.

In the second group, sometimes, artists' dissent against the dominant ideology may be expressed in hidden symbols or clever subversions of ideas. The image below shows posters about fascism from 1920s & 30s.

Fascist Ideology & Its Artistic Influences

Fascism means glorification of masculine virtues - tall, broad, strong, powerful and patriotic alpha males with square jaws, leading their families, communities and the country, to compete against, fight and dominate the men from other communities and countries, for the glory of their fatherland.

Women play a supporting role in this process, they are supposed to reproduce children, look after their families and communities, and admire their handsome men. (The image below has a sculpture of the war veteran and fascist leader Carlo Delacroix by the sculptor Antonio G. Santagata in 1928)

I had no idea about the impact of fascist ideology on the arts and thus, I was very curious to visit this exhibition. My friend Giorgio loves art and when he proposed that we go to Rovereto to see it, I immediately agreed.

The term "Fascism" comes from Fascia or Fascio, a covering or a band. For example, fascias can be the cords tying together bundles of grain-stalks. For this reason, often paintings from that era show bundles of grain-stalks tied together by the fascia. This term expressed the strength of being united.  Image below has a painting from this exhibition, showing bundles of grain-stalks.

Evolution of Fascism in Italy

The ideas of "Revolutionary Fascism" were launched after the end of second world war by the 34 years old Benito Mussolini around 1917. Five years later, in 1922, the king of Italy appointed the 39 years old Mussolini as the prime minister.

In 1925, Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher and the ideologue of fascism, launched the Manifesto of Revolutionary Fascism at Palazzo Fava in Bologna (that building today hosts a medieval museum).

Initially, the fascist ideology developed as secular, but over the 1930s, Mussolini developed closer links with the Catholic church. During 1930s, Mussolini also became closer to Hitler and Nazism, and the racial segregation laws targeting the Jews were enacted in 1938.

In 1943, the arrival of British-American allied forces in south Italy led to German occupation of remaining Italy and the conclusion of the fascism. Partisans killed Giovanni Gentile in 1944 and Mussolini was lynched in April 1945.

With this introduction, now let me come to some examples of the exhibits.

Artworks in the Exhibition: Influence of Fascism on Art During 1920s and 1930s

Fascist ideals of women and children were expressed through creation of specific movements with their black costumes, songs and parades. For example, the children were organised in the Ballila groups for physical and moral education. Ceramic statues from 1930s from the ceramic factories of Nove-Bassano and the statues by Elena Konig, shown below, represent these.

Designs made by the artist Achille Funi during 1930s for making frescoes in official buildings also show the influence of fascism (image below). Funi is credited with the Novecento art movement during 1920s and for bringing back fresco mural-paintings into vogue.

Mario Sironi was another artist, part of the Novecento movement, who worked on fresco mural-paintings. The image below, shows his works "the horse-rider" from 1934, illustrating men and horses, another favourite theme of fascism.

Italian futurism art movement had started in early 20th century, before the first world war. During late 1920s and 1930s, a second futurism-art movement came around, which was heavily influenced by fascism. The two images below show some examples of this phase of futurism-art.

 

This was the biggest section of the exhibition.

Artworks in the Exhibition: Art About Benito Mussolini

Mussolini as the supreme leader of fascism, was often represented in paintings and sculpture. As an icon of fascism, these representations often showed him as fighter and warrior, with square jaws, frowning brows and a scowl or even injured in a fist fight. Below you can see some examples of these icons.

Artworks in the Exhibition: Art About the End of Fascism

In 1943, the arrival of allied forces in south Italy signalled the end of  fascism and artists could finally express themselves openly. For example, the 1943 painting by Mino Maccari shows the end awaiting Mussolini.

In 1945, at the end of the second world war, Benito Mussolini was lynched and angry mobs had brought down his statues and broken them. One such bust of Mussolini, which had been created by sculptor Adolf Wildt in 1923, and was broken with hammers by an angry mob in 1945, illustrates that time (image below).

India in the Exhibition

The fascism-art exhibition also had a 1942 painting by Italian artist Adalberto Libera titled "The Ataturk Monument in Ankara", shown in the image below. It has a column of fire in the middle and round walls all around with the Sanskrit words "Vande Matram" written in Roman alphabet.

Libera is known primarily as an architect. I don't think that the painting shows the Ataturk monument, rather it shows India's independence struggle against the British, which might have been seen positively by the fascist regime. I don't know if Libera had by mistake added the Sanskrit words to his Ataturk painting or if the exhibition organisers have mistaken the painting-title.

In Conclusion

This exhibition on art from the fascism era was curated by the well-known Italian art historian, critic and author Vittorio Sgarbi. He is known for his abusive and polemical TV-show persona and I don't like watching him, but I liked the way he has curated this exhibition.

At the end I am haunted by the broken statue of Mussolini. It reminded me of images of statues of Lenin and Saddam Hussein being brought down by mobs. In this sense, history keeps on repeating itself - sooner or later, the dictators and the strongmen become prisoners of their own images and are unable to confront the reality in time, to stop themselves from the final inevitable showdown.

Let me conclude this post with another image from this exhibition - a 1939 painting by Cesare Maggi titled "Listening to the Duce's radio broadcast".

I think that the above painting is about the declaration of Italy joining Germany in the war. Most persons in the painting look sombre and are dressed in black, the colour of the fascists. I am intrigued by the man in the red shirt standing in the centre, who has military medals pinned on his shirt. Was that red colour used by the artist to give a strong focal point in the painting or was it a sign towards the role played by Italian partisans in the war, who had fought against the Mussolini regime? The hill in the background seems like San Luca in Bologna, which had a large network of partisans.

May be Maggi, usually known as an artist close to the fascist regime, was actually trying to express his dissent through this painting?

Perhaps a similar argument can be made about some of the busts of Mussolini, which seem to caricature a strongman persona?

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