Il dispositivo Morandi. La presenza di Giorgio Morandi nel dibattito critico e nella produzione artistica in Italia 1934-2014

Abstract

The research deals with the presence of Giorgio Morandi in critical debate and artistic production in Italy between 1934 and 2014, moving from the concept of the dispositif, which Deleuze intends as "a tangle, a multilinear ensemble, composed of lines, each having a different nature ". The dispositif is used as a metaphor for the complex role played by Giorgio Morandi in critical debate and in the artistic production during the 20th century and until the present day. The thesis is divided into three chapters, preceded by theoretical-methodological introduction and the analysis of the Morandi’s artistic literature in the years preceding the opening date of research. The first and decisive change in critical studies dedicated to the artist was given by Longhi, during the lesson Momenti di pittura Bolognese (1934). The thesis ends with the examination of celebrations during 2014, which was organized and dedicated to Morandi's work in the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of his death. The first of the three chapters, that follows a chronological order, "Passion and ideology", reconstructs Morandi’s role in the artistic debate from 1934 to 1950, analyzing the presence of the artist in the Quadriennale of Rome in 1939 and the essays by Cesare Brandi. In the following three paragraphs is reconstructed the post-war mood and the controversy between abstract and realist artists that dominated Italian artistic scene until the Venice Biennale of 1948; the last paragraph deals with the presence of Morandi at the MoMA exhibition, Twentieth Century Italian Art. We also consider the contributions of Lionello Venturi, who was the first interpreter of Morandi as an abstract artist, and then the writings of Argan, Marchiori, Gnudi, scholars that make Morandi, through different procedures, the model of their critical view. The next chapter, "Organicity and abstraction", analyzes the period from 1950 to 1964, the year of Morandi’s death. The analysis of this period focuses on the writings of Ragghianti, who played Morandi in relation to organic architecture of Wright, and the comparison between Morandi and Mondrian, made by Soby and Palluchini at the San Paulo Biennale in 1957. At the end of the decade we attach importance to the monographs of Arcangeli and Vitali. The last chapter of the thesis, "Morandi after Morandi", focuses on the Morandi’s legacy that affects the criticism and art from 1964 to this day... [edited by Author]