Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The 20th Century
After centuries under the thumbs of popes and sundry imperial powers, Tuscany had ac-
quired a certain forced cosmopolitanism, and local artists could identify with Rome, Paris
or other big cities in addition to their own
contrada
(neighbourhood). The two biggest stars
in the early decades of this century were Livorno-born painter and sculptor Amedeo
Modigliani (1884-1920), who lived most of his adult life in Paris, and Greek-born painter
Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), who studied in Florence and painted the first of his
'Metaphysical Town Square' series there.
Other than Modigliani and di Chirico, no Tuscan painters of note were represented with-
in the major Italian artistic movements of the century: Futurismo (Futurism), Pittura
Metafisica (Metaphysical Painting), Spazialismo (Spatialism) and Arte Povera (conceptual
art using materials of little worth). Architecture didn't have many local stars either, with the
only exception being Giovanni Michelucci (1891-1990), whose buildings include Santa
Maria Novella Railway Station in Florence (1932-34).
In the 1980s, there was a return to painting and sculpture in a traditional (primarily figur-
ative) sense. Dubbed 'Transavanguardia', this movement broke with the prevailing interna-
tional focus on conceptual art and was thought by some critics to signal the death of avant-
garde. Tuscan artists who were part of this movement include Sandro Chia (b 1946).
The term 'Macchiaioli' (the name given to a 19th-century group of Tuscan plein-air artists) was
coined by a journalist in 1862. It mockingly implied that the artists' finished works were no
more than sketches, and was drawn from the phrase
darsi alla macchia
(to hide in bushes or scrub-
land).
