Continuity and discontinuity of the debate around fascist art in Toti Scialoja’s critical meditation and in the querelle with Renato Guttuso (1944-1947)

Abstract

The essay examines the activity of Toti Scialoja as art critic for the review «Mercurio» between 1944 and 1947, when he proceeds to a precocious analysis of the preceding thirty years, looking for an Italian and international line of painting whit a clear examination of art and debate in the fascist period. The objectivity with which Scialoja affirms the split between artist and civil and politically committed man, sanctioning the need for an artistic religion in place of political one, contrasts its position with that of the communist painters. The essay analyzes the phase of this controversy consumed inside the same political area and on the pages of reviews (from «Mercurio» to «Rinascita» where Guttuso attacks the positions of Scialoja) with the background of post-war Rome’s fervor and the queries on realism (before the appearance of neo-cubism and neo-expressionism), which precociously reveals the persistence of issues, terminologies and problems inherited from the debate on fascist art. The essay intends to study these issues in comparative optics, highlighting continuity and discontinuity in a time period still free from rigid historiographic normalization and therefore useful for the reading of subsequent developments in art and criticism.