Fascist Visions: Art and Ideology in France and Italy

by Matthew Affron (Editor), Mark Antliff (Editor)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691241968
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	02/08/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Matthew Affron is Assistant Professor or Art History at the University of Virginia. He is currently writing a book on the work of Fernand Léger. Mark Antliff is Associate Professor of Art History at Queen's University in Canada. He is the author of Inventing Bergson: Cultural Politics and the Parisian Avant-Garde (Princeton). A Guggenheim Fellow in 1995-96, he is completing a book entitled The Advent of Fascism: Myth, Art, and Ideology in France.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Art and Fascist Ideology in France and Italy: An Introduction

The Myth of National Regeneration in Italy: From Modernist Avant-Garde to Fascism

Ardengo Soffici and the Religion of Art

Valentine de Saint-Point and the Fascist Construction of Woman

Mario Sironi's Urban Landscapes: The Futurist/Fascist Nexus

La Cite francaise: Georges Valois, Le Corbusier, and Facist Theories of Urbanism

Waldemar George: A Parisian Art Critic on Modernism and Fascism

The State as Patron: Making Official Culture in Fascist Italy

Decadence and Renewal in the Decorative Arts under Vichy

Selected Bibliography

Notes on the Contributors

Index

What People are Saying About This

Zeev Sternhell

Fascist Visions is an innovative, thoughtful, informative, and consistently intelligent collection of essays. The presentation of the complex interplay between art history and history of ideas and politics constitutes a major historiographical achievement, which will have a deep impact on the debate on fascism.
— Zeev Sternhell, "Hebrew University of Jerusalem"

From the Publisher

"Fascist Visions is an innovative, thoughtful, informative, and consistently intelligent collection of essays. The presentation of the complex interplay between art history and history of ideas and politics constitutes a major historiographical achievement, which will have a deep impact on the debate on fascism."—Zeev Sternhell, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Editorial Reviews

"Fascist Visions is an innovative, thoughtful, informative, and consistently intelligent collection of essays. The presentation of the complex interplay between art history and history of ideas and politics constitutes a major historiographical achievement, which will have a deep impact on the debate on fascism."—Zeev Sternhell, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

From the Publisher