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Mario Sironi (1885-1961)
Biography
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Mario Sironi, born in Sardegna Italy, is known for his highly personal romantic expression. As a student, he first specialized in mathematics and engineering but then abandoned them for painting. Studying art in Rome at the Free School of Nude Drawing, he was exposed to the exponents of Futurism, which he explored in his early art work. One of his close associates was Umberto Boccioni, a leading Futurist, who involved Sironi in Futurist exhibitions held in Rome. Boccioni described Sironi as an artist "who has embarked in a profound and highly original way on research into plastic dynamism." Sironi also worked as an illustrator for various Italian periodicals. Faced with the threats of World War I, he and his companions enrolled in the Volunteer Lombard Battalion of Cyclists and Motorists (1915-18) and signed the manifesto calling on Italy to enter the war. He married Matilde Fabbrini, a painter, in 1919 and they lived and worked in Milan.
In 1919, Sironi signed another manifesto related to art. Titled Against All Revisitations in Painting, it was a rejection of academic or traditional art methods and subjects and promoted that which addressed the new age of modern life with its focus on mechanization. However, by the early 1920s, Sironi began to break away from the Futurists and their fascination with depicting integrated moving components or machines. His themes of deliberate timelessness, imagery of the industrial world, and his natural style embracing monumental and solid forms rendered in dark tones were much more encompassing than the more literal depictions of the Futurists. Sironi also experimented with movie production and produced numerous public murals. Returning to the painting of easel pictures, he felt a kinship in the 1940s and 1950s to the evolving Abstract Expressionism that is somewhat reflected in Two Horsemen. He is not easily identified with any particular movements, however, because his styles continually changed and evolved, showing influences of numerous modes. Primarily he is associated with a love of his country--its somber beauty, psychological implications of counter forces, and symbolic references, particularly to its great historical past.
Known as one of the most influential, technically skilled, and philosophically challenging artists of twentieth-century Italy, Sironi, excepting a brief period of study in Germany, worked primarily in Italy. Utilizing his engineering background and interest in architecture, he designed the Italian Pavilion for the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. But tragically his love of country caused him to be disgraced in reputation after World War II because of allegations of Fascist identification. For a long period, this assertion clouded critics' assessment of his artwork. Only recently has he been rediscovered, but this revitalization did not occur in time to rescue him from the poverty and neglect he experienced in his later years. [Adapted from Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden]
The Great Books: Mario Sironi
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Mario Sironi
The Road to Expressionism
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