Università Roma Tre

Following different trajectories throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, the course aims to critically examine the origin and history of the terms "Orientalism" and "Primitivism" by highlighting their multiple and conflicting meanings.

Central themes of the course will be the "exotic" imaginary constructed by the gaze of the so-called Orientalist artists and the reception of art and ethnographic objects from non-European cultures that arrived in Europe and Italy in the years when colonial explorations and ambitions increased.

Finally, exhibition projects dedicated to non-European arts will be analyzed and compared to examine their narratives and exhibition strategies.

Preparation for the exam requires in-depth study of:

a)

Rossana Bossaglia, Gli Orientalisti italiani (1830-1940), in Gli orientalisti italiani: cento anni di esotismo (1830-1940), Catalogo della mostra (Torino, Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, 1998-1999), a cura di Rossana Bossaglia, Venezia, Marsilio, 1998, pp. 3-13.

Alessandro Del Puppo, Primitivismo, Firenze, Giunti, 2003.

Maria Grazia Messina, Le muse d’oltremare: esotismo e primitivismo dell’arte contemporanea, Torino, Einaudi, 1993.

and at least one of the following texts of your choice:

b)

Alessandro Del Puppo, Primitivismo mondano, orientalismo da museo, in Modigliani scultore, catalogo della mostra (Rovereto, Mart, 2010-2011), a cura di Gabriella Belli, Flavio Fergonzi, Alessandro Del Puppo, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana, 2010.

Peter Benson Miller, “Des couleurs primitives”: Miscegenation and French Painting of Algeria, «Visual Resources», 24, 3, 2008, pp. 273-298.

Maria Grazia Messina, Un’illustrazione di «Emporium», 1922 e la fotografia della ‘scultura negra’ intorno al secondo decennio del Novecento, in Emporium. Parole e figure tra il 1895 e il 1964, a cura di Giorgio Bacci e Miriam Fileti Mazza Pisa, Edizioni della Normale, 2014.

Marta Nezzo, La ricezione "scientifica" dell’arte africana nell’Italia del primo Novecento, in Il confronto con l’alterità tra Ottocento e Novecento, a cura di Giuliana Tomasella, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2020, pp. 167-181.

Linda Nochlin, The Imaginary Orient, «Art in America», 71, 5, 1983, pp. 119-131; 187-191.

Roberto Pinto, Primitivismo e ibridazione. Due mondi in due parole a partire da due opere in Arte-mondo, a cura di Emanuela De Cecco, Milano, pp. 17-33.

Lucia Re, “Barbari civilizzatissimi”: Marinetti and the Futurist Myth of Barbarism, «Journal of Modern Italian Studies», 17, n. 3, 2012, pp. 350-368.

c) of teaching materials (which will be shared on the Teams platform): ppts of the slides projected in class, videos, digital copies of historical sources.

Non-attendee program: in-depth study of the texts listed in (a) and at least three of the titles listed in (b), as well as the course materials available on the Teams platform, is required