Catanese modern sculptors and their Mediterranean artistic reply to modernism

Abstract

The writing of this dissertation originated from the will to investigate an episode of twentieth-century Italian art which, up to present day, rarely received the attention it would deserve. This concerns the artistic output produced by various sculptors coming from the Sicilian city of Catania. On this line, this dissertation proposes to strengthen the rather restrained corpus of academic writings dedicated to such a context which are, however, missing the rich photographic documentation of the current dissertation and exclusively written in Italian language. Within this perspective, this dissertation has been written with the intent of contributing to the body of academic writings which investigate modern art in Mediterranean hubs often neglected in favour of research and publications related to bigger and more important centres of artistic development. Although the latter is a necessary and useful practice, this should not result in losing snippets of art history which are considered as less important. Even more, it should not result in failing to document contexts which contribute to an element of variety within the development of art. Hence, this dissertation would like to contribute to the documentation of the artistic practice of small territorial realities around the Mediterranean. As these have always constituted parallel waves to the more considered Western European art as well as created variety of style through significant manifestations of territory-specific artistic identity. Indeed, this dissertation hopes to give a humble contribution in preventing the fall of this art historical episode into an undeserved oblivion. It is for this reason that this writing eventually attempts to keep alive the memory of all the treated sculptors and of the cultural-artistic environment existing around them as well as assessing the validity of their artistic output.