Aleksandr Deineka: 3 weeks in Rome, 1935

Metaphysical Rome, shades of de Chirico.  Superb colors.

He was only in Rome for 3 weeks, 80 years ago (and the chances are good you've never heard of him), but out of that moment came some extraordinary images of the city.  His work reminds us of three of our favorite 20th century Italian painters: Pio Pullini, Renato Guttuso, and Giorgio de Chirico.




Aleksandr Deineka (1899-1969), painter, sculptor, illustrator, theorist, would come to be recognized by his homeland, the Soviet Union, as one of the nation's most distinguished artists, receiving the Lenin Prize in 1964 as a hero of Soviet socialism.

Foro Italico or, when Deineka was there, Foro Mussolini.

He was 36 when he arrived in Rome on April 12, 1935, and it took him by storm.  "My God what a city," he wrote.  "Beyond even Paris!  And I'm not referring to Michelangelo and the other greats of the past...here, one looks ahead!"

Deineka walked the streets tirelessly, enjoying the surprises the city offered, savoring the contrasts between old and new.  "There is an 'interessantissima architettura moderna,' severe and traditional; the [Foro Mussolini] is extraordinarily impressive for its
scale and layout."

Italian workers on bicycles

Walking about in the evening, he remarked that the Romans were "still in the street," not like New York, where there was activity only on Broadway.

It seems likely, though it can't be said for sure, that while in Rome Deineka found his way to the 2nd Quadriennale di Roma at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, where he would have come into contact with some of the best Italian modern art, and with the dominant aesthetic of the Fascist state and era.  

With thanks to the 2011 exhibit catalog,
Aleksandr Deineka: Il maestro sovietico della modernità (Skira, 2011).
Bill

A bit of distortion captures the enormity, and emptiness, of the Piazza del Quirinale.  The building is the Scuderie (the stables of Palazzo Quirinale).  

The Secret Sketches of Pio Pullini

We're fresh from an artistic rush, this one provided by Pio Pullini's lovely and poignant watercolors, now on display (until 3 September) at the Museo di Roma at Palazzo Braschi, between Corso Emanuele II and Piazza Navona. Pullini was born in Ancona in 1887, moved to Rome when he was 19, and the mostra (show) covers the years from 1920-1945, when Pullini provided illustrations for the Tribuna Illustrata and L'Urbe. He also did some paintings, often involving those he was close to, and--a highlight of the show--many "secret" watercolors that record his reactions to Roman life under Fascism and the German occupation (including loading Rome's Jews into trucks for eventual transport to concentration camps). Others treat the liberation of Rome by the allied armies.

Pullini will remind some of Norman Rockwell, but his work is thankfully less technically precise (Rockwell was fanatical about verisimillitude), more perceptive about the human condition, and more willing to grapple with the political realities of life in an age of economic depression and totalitarianism.

I was eager to take some pics in the exhibition but was intimidated by the presence in every room of two video cameras covering every angle. Two of offerings in this post are all from the show's brochure. The third, above left, was sent on by BL, who was apparently less intimidated.

There isn't a word of English in the exhibition, and that's unfortunate; it wouldn't have taken much to translate picture titles from the Italian. But this show is worth seeing anyway, and cheap at twice the price. When we asked the young lady at the desk if there was a sconto (discount) for sopra sessantacinque (over age 65), she asked us where we were from, and we were sure that the answer we gave--New York--would, in revealing that we weren't from the European Union, disqualify us for the discount. Instead, she gave us our tickets and told it was free. You never know!

Bill