Italian art: Modern Italian Art

During the late 18th and 19th cent. Italy continued to serve as a training school for the artists of the world but tended to rest on her laurels. In the mid-19th cent. the group known as the Macchiaioli gave new life to landscape and genre subjects. Early in the 20th cent. the exponents of futurism developed a dynamic vision of the modern world while Chirico expressed a strange metaphysical quietude and Modigliani joined the school of Paris. Gifted later modern artists include the sculptors Giacomo Manzù, Marino Marini, the still-life painter Giorgio Morandi, and the iconoclastic painter Lucio Fontana. In the second half of the 20th cent. Italian designers, particularly those of Milan, have profoundly influenced international styles with their imaginative and ingenious functional works.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Modern Italian Art
• The Rococo Period
• The Baroque Period
• Venetian Painting
• Mannerism
• The High Renaissance
• The Quattrocento
• The Beginnings of Italian Renaissance Art
• The Medieval Period
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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