Mario Mafai's Demolizioni: On Fascist Cultural Policies and Anti-Fascist Art History

Schembri, Elena

Item

Mario Mafai's Demolizioni: On Fascist Cultural Policies and Anti-Fascist Art History

Schembri, Elena

Abstract

This thesis proposes a reconsideration of Mario Mafai’s Demolizioni series, painted in Rome between 1936 and 1939. These 20 or so paintings depict buildings in the city center of Rome that were being demolished as a consequence of the enactment of the 1931 Master Plan. The works were widely appreciated by members of the Fascist regime before and during the war as works celebrating Mussolini’s initiative of rebuilding a new, Fascist Rome. However, after 1945, art critics interpreted Mafai’s Demolizioni as a first sign of the artist’s aversion towards the regime, and a warning against the atrocities yet to be witnessed during World War Two. However, proclaiming Demolizioni a series of anti- Fascist works is problematic, first because they do not express an outspoken condemnation of Fascism or of war as other works by Mafai clearly do; second, because Mario Mafai himself adopted a rather ambiguous and at times even opportunistic attitude towards politics. While the Roman artist doubtlessly became an anti-Fascist after 1938-1939, his earlier political positions remain unclear. This thesis therefore investigates Mafai’s attitude towards Fascism by considering the publication of articles written by or about him on Fascist newspapers and periodicals like L’Italia Letteraria or Quadrivio, as well as three paintings and one fresco celebrating Fascist themes, all painted by Mafai between 1931 and 1937. Returning to Demolizioni, this thesis argues that, like Mafai’s Fiori Secchi series, they stand out as an ode to what is about to perish and stands on the threshold separating existence from oblivion. Far from being artworks denunciating the regime, Demolizioni are here seen as emblematic of Mafai’s pictorial and artistic taste, a manifestation of his most intimate reflections on life and death. In support of this point, this thesis will address how art critics and the general public received Demolizioni at the time they were first exhibited at the Galleria della Cometa in 1937 through articles written and published in newspapers from both sides of the political divide.