Pages of art

Through long archival research and a large series of unpublished documents, Elena Pontiggia reconstructs the existential and artistic events of Mario Sironi in a volume that corrects historical errors so far widespread and illuminates sides of his activity still unknown.
«Art does not need to succeed sympathetically, but demands greatness», wrote Sironi, painter of inhospitable suburbs yet imposing as modern cathedrals. Futurist since 1913, in the twenties he expressed the harshest aspect of the city and contemporary life, but he gave his urban landscapes the strength of classical architecture and his figures the solemnity of ancient portraits. Of a modern classicism, he was one of the major protagonists between the two wars: first with the movement of the Italian twentieth century; then with the visionary dream of a renaissance of fresco and mosaic. Personal friend of Mussolini and fascist of the first hour, Sironi gave shape in his mural painting of the years
thirty to the doctrine of the regime even if its art, powerful and painful, will never become an art of State.

Life has not spared him, yet his painting opposes the tragedies of existence and history a willful constructive will. At least until the last season when, vanished dreams and illusions, he paints crumbling cities and visions of the Apocalypse.
Elena Pontiggia, art historian, is a professor at the Brera Academy. He deals in particular with international art between the two wars and the relationship between modernity and classicism. He collaborates with Stampa and various magazines.

His latest volumes include: Hopper (2004); Modernity and classicism. The Return to the Order in Europe (2008, Carducci Prize 2009); Christian Schad (in press). On Sironi has curated numerous exhibitions and pubblications.