Archive for the ‘Italian Liberty’ Category

Adolfo De Carolis (De Karolis) (Montefiore Asia (AP), Jan. 6  1874 – Rome, Feb. 7 1928) was an Italian painter, engraver, illustrator and author of art.
In 1888, by advice of the architect Giuseppe Sacconi, he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna
where he attended courses of fellow Domenico Ferri. In 1892, once graduated, he moved to Rome, following courses Domenico Bruschi and Alessandro Morani Art Museum Industrial and joining the group "In Arte Libertas" in 1897,
embracing aesthetic and philosophical positions, derived from the thought of John Ruskin and William Morris.

The believe in philosophical works of Ruskin pushed De Carolis to consider the artistic production as a sort of aesthetic and moral mission, in which the artisanal work of the artist follows his high spiritual attitude and role. Second consequence of this aesthetic attitude was the reconsideration of the whole artistic production and the removal of any limits or hierarchies towards artistic techniques.  His works are also influenced by the fifteenth century Umbrian and Tuscany art. The Reinassance played for De Carolis around the same role played by the revival of Gothic for Morris.

Again, accordingly to the spiritual mission of the artist, every aspect of the human life should be fulfilled by art. The philosophical credo echoed the quest of a Gesamtkunstwerk, of the Total work of Art championed by Richard Wagner and by several national declination (especially Austrian) of the Symbolist and Art Nouveau Movements.

This aesthetic belief is quite strong and then evident in the  production of De Carolis. While some production (such as the illustrations for Francesca da Rimini) are quite influenced by Ruskin and Pre-raphaelite taste, the artisticr relationship with the famous writer and aesthete Gabriele D’Annunzio influenced De Carolis towards a more symbolic and decadent style, such as one can see in the illustration of Fedra and Il Notturno. The new spelling of the surname "De Karolis," which uses the first  decade of the century,  attributable to the fashion of exoticism, influenced by d’Annunzio.

Coherently with his credo on the Gesamtkunstwerk, De Carolis was active also as painter and decorator. One of his masterpiece as decorator is the  villa Costantini Brancadoro of San Benedetto del Tronto finished in 1904.

Anyway his fame was definitively bound to his activities as book and magazine illustrator. Apart as main and most famous  illustrator of D’Annunzio (eventually, he illustrated not only books but also the famous Mottos of D’Annunzio, as we will see in a following article), he was also a successful illustrator of two of the most influencing turn of the century Italian art magazines "Novissima" and "Hermes". For this latter he prepared an article on Decorative Modern Art (February 1904), in which he states, again, the interest accrued over the years to the unity of the arts, decorative and applied arts.

Joseph Maria Auchentaller first contact with the Jugendstil movement was with the Secession in Monaco of Bavaria between 1892 and 1896, he collaborated with the famous magazine Jugend and complements the artistic maturity that will see him lead in the nascent movement in Vienna, which had been a member since its foundation.
The dedication to graphic art continues as far as he collaborated withl Ver Sacrum in Vienna, for whom he wrote some covers and a large number of illustrations inspired mainly floral, with a style heavily influenced by Japonisme. Other works denoted also the heavy influences of artists such as Gustav Klimt:

In 1901 he moved to Grado, at that time a famous touristic resort of the Adriatic Coast. There, collaborating with architect On Julius Mayreder, Auchentaller fully decorated the Building of ‘Pension Fortino’. Also in Grado Auchentaller designed one of his most famous posters, "Seebad Grade.Österreichisches Küstenland, dated 1906 and printed in Vienna by A. Berger, an admirable example of Jugendstil atmosphere and charm.

Attentive to art of the billboard, which took the full force in society for the dissemination of ideas, messages and products, designed and created numerous posters in which speech and language base of Plakatstil marked by a strong stylization and summary graphics.
After 1902 the artist progressively detached from the Viennese melting pot scenario and from the aesthetic of Secession, devoting mainly to the portrait and landscape painting.

I was impressed, reading the essay on the Italian Liberty architecture by the authoritative art historian Rossana Bossaglia, by the her concerns regarding the development of an Art Nouveau (Liberty, as the movement is known in Italy) architecture. In particular she complained about the lack of a real innovative research of new forms in architecture during the Art Nouveau period in Italy as was the case, for example in Belgium or in Spain.  Accordingly to Rossana Bossaglia, the problem with the Italian Art Nouveau architecture is the lack of a very meaningful research on the forms in the building’s own structure, thus relegating all the evocative suggestions of the Art Nouveau’ Lines to the decorative elements on the façade. In other terms, in Italy, accordingly to Bossaglia, the development of the national Art Nouveau style lacked a personality such as Victor Hortha in"Belgium, Odon Lechner in Hungary, Otto Wagner in Austrian or Anton Gaudi in Spain, thus limiting to very few examples the very contribution of Italy to the development to the international modernist style.

Anyway, even stated the lack of an outstanding personality or a school master, in Italy we could experience a very development of the know-how, of some techniques which are nevertheless impacting over the progression of the Art Nouveau style and technique. A brief digression here regarding the relationship between the style and the technique. In classical point of view, the work of art represents an ideal wedding (chemical ?) between technical skills, inspiration and personal style. The technique element, the Greek tekné constitutes a world of potential and possibility with which the artist could fully express his or her own feelings or inspirations. The point here is that classically an artist could really produce a work of art only after having mastered the expressive technique of his own artistic field. I have well printed in my head the words Arnold Schönberg, who in his theoretical masterpiece, Armonienlehere, complained that his fellows and disciples must know very well and master all the classical composition techniques prior to try any subsequent engagements into the new dodecaphonic arrangements. Giving life and form to a work of art (informing, using aesthetic terminology, a work of art) means basically mastering a technique at the same level which permits to a poet to fully express the complexity of his poetry and inspirations just after, and only after, having a deep knowledge of the language (including the possibility of providing complex images as consequence of mastering a complex vocabulary).

As far as the development of the Stile Liberty, the national declination of Art Nouveau in Italy, is concerned, one of the most exiting an fundamental contribution of the Italian artists at the turn of the century is due to their outstanding improvement of the iron workmanship techniques. Walking through some streets in Milan gives exactly the idea of the outstanding level that the technique of iron decorations reached during the turn of the century in Italy.

Artists such as Alessandro Mazzucotelli, Carlo Rizzarda or Umberto Bellotto, maybe not so known as other champions of art nouveau such as Alphonse Mucha or Gaudi, were eventually able to push to the extreme the ornamental possibilities of iron. Iron structures developed in other countries, of course: In the fin de siècle Barcelona or Paris, iron structures were used in architecture, sometime not just as decorative elements rather than as fully structural ones.

Anyway the technical level reached by the Italian artists permitted to create ornaments which present decorative ornaments with a very fitomorphic feeling. Moreover, seems that the researches for an art which could be overcharged by the same explosive mystic strength of Creative Nature, an art which could be able to mimic not the  naturalistic elements rather than the very inner force of the Nature itself, these researches boosted by improving these new techniques.

The expressive potentiality of an art as a mirror of the symbolic aspect of the nature was significantly improved by a technique which could release the flexibility potentiality of the metallic materials. The researches of Mazzucotelli and the other Italian artist of the iron constituted not just a technical step forward in the direction of fitomorphic ornament: they constituted also an improvements of its symbolic dictionary.