The Monument Men

This is some additional information on the missing "monument men "

Written By: Nancy G. Cunningham September 16,2007

 

 

Venturi, Lionello
Table of Contents
1. bio
2. obit1
3. obit2
4. photo

1. bio ^Top

Date Accessed: 21 Sep. 2007
Title: Lionello Venturi
URL: http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/venturil.htm

HName:  Venturi, Lionello

DateBorn:  1885

Placeborn:  Modena, Italy

Datedied:  1961

Placedied:   Rome, Italy

HDescrip:  Professor of art history, University of Turin and Rome; specialist in Italian Renaissance and late 19th and early 20th century art.  Venturi was the son of the eminent art historian Adolfo Venturi (q.v.), who remained a strong methodological influence in his life.  He published his first article in 1903.  He graduated from the University of Rome, a pupil of his father, in 1907 publishing his thesis, an account of the origins of Venetian painting, the same year.  In 1909 he was appointed museum inspector (Superintendent) of various Italian regions, Venice in 1909-1910, Rome, 1911-1912, and Urbino, 1913-1914 . In 1913, a book on Giorgione appeared.  He was appointed Professor of the History of Art at the University of Turin in 1915.  Among his first students was Mary Pittagula (q.v.), who wrote her ground-breaking thesis on Fromentin (q.v.) under Venturi. Almost immediately, Venturi served in World War I as a soldier in a machine-gun unit assigned to the mountains of Turin, from 1915 to 1918. He was badly shell shocked resulting in a speech impediment and the temporary loss of sight in an eye, both of which took him years to overcome.  He returned to the University after the war where he was early among Italians to expound the works and concepts of Heinrich Wölfflin (q.v.), principally in the article “Gli schemi del Wölfflin,” in the journal L'Esame (1922). In 1926, Venturi issued a book on the early Italian Renaissance artists, still referred to as the primitives. He made his first trip to the United States in 1929, where he learned first hand the American collections of Italian art.  When Italy's fascist dictator Benito Mussolini rose to power in the early 1930s, Venturi refused to take the loyalty oath required of all civil servants.  He was dismissed from the University in 1931.  Moving to France in 1932, where he continued as co-director of L'arte (1930-1935)  researching and publishing numerous important books.  His first, a three-volume survey, Italian Paintings in the United States, the result of his American trip, appeared in 1933.  In 1935 he was asked to give lectures (in English) on art criticism in the United States.  A "trial run" delivery of these in London utilized a speech therapist, who finally cured his impediment. Venturi published these in 1936--probably the first history of art criticism--as Storia della critica d'arte, which also appeared in English the same year as the History of Art Criticism. The same year, his catalogue raisonné on Cézanne appeared, a work of 1,634 entries on the artist. A book on the literary sources of Impressionism, Les archives de l'Impressionisme, appeared in 1939 as did a second catalogue raisonné on Pissaro, co-authored with the artist's son.  At the declaration of war in France the same year, Venturi, still a citizen of an Axis power, moved to the United States, which as not yet at war, to be a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University, 1940 (where he delivered the "Art Criticism Now" lectures), then the University of California, Berkelely, 1941, the University of Mexico, Mexico City, 1942, and finally the École Libre des Hautes Études, New York, in 1942-1943. After European armistice, he returned to Italy, joining, in 1945,  the University of Rome where his father had taught, now in the capacity of Professor of Modern Art.  Together with Mario Salmi (q.v.), he founded and edited the art periodical Commentari in 1950.  A book on Caravaggio was issued in 1952.  He retired from the University in 1955 and the same year returned to the United States to deliver the Bampton Lectures at Columbia University, "Four Steps Toward Modern Art."  His students include Guilio Argan (q.v.), who succeeded him as chair of modern art in Rome in 1959.

Venturi's methodology concentrated on the artist's intention in creating the work of art as a key to its understanding.  He focused on artist's writings and the contemporary criticism (as opposed to esthetic theory or social history, for example) to explain art works.  Like his father, Venturi was greatly influenced by the writings of  Benedetto Croce (q.v.), especially Croce's anti-positivistic stance.  But Croce's limitation toward considerations of style led Venturi to incorporate the methods of art historians such as Alois Riegl (q.v.), Max Dvořák (q.v.) and Wölfflin, writers whom he largely brought to the attention of the Italian public. Salerno described Ventrui as bent on "synthesis and a method of criticism based on esthetics." His writings, especially those on Caravaggio and the Impressionists, were revolutionary because he insisted these art works held a place equal to the "classics" of traditional Italian art history: the painters of the high renaissance.  His insistence that criticism be incorporated into the methods of art is among his lasting contribution to the discipline.

HCountry:  Italy/ United States

HBiography: [entire issue devoted to aspects of Venturi's life and methodology] "Lionello Venturi e i nuovi orizzonti di ricerca della storia dell'arte."  Storia dell'Arte 101 (2002);  Bazin, Germain.  Histoire de l'histoire de l'art; de Vasari à nos jours.  Paris: Albin Michel, 1986 p. 437;  Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, p. 3; [obituaries:] "Prof. Lionello Venturi Italian Art Historian." The Times (London) August 17, 1961, p. 10; Castano, Giovanni.  "Lionello Venturi 1885-1961." Art Journal 21, no. 2 (Winter, 1961): 124; Salerno, Luigi.  "Lionello Venturi." Burlington Magazine 104, no. 706 (January 1962): 35-36.

HBibliography: [complete bibliography:] Scritti di storia dell'arte in onore di Lionello Venturi.  Rome: De Luca, 1956, vol 2, pp. 319-335;  [thesis:] Le origini della pittura veneziana, 1300-1500. Venice: Istituto Veneto di Arti Grafiche, 1907; Camille Pisarro: son art-- son oeuvre. Paris: P. Rosenberg, 1939;  Cézanne, son art, son oeuvre. Paris: P. Rosenberg, 1936;  Impressionists and Symbolists.  New York: Scribner, 1950;  Les archives de l'Impressionisme. Paris and New York: Durand-Ruel, editeurs, 1939;  "Gli studi di storia dell'arte medioevale e moderna." Saggi di Critica.  (1956): 277-306;  Art Criticism Now. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1941;  Storia della critica d'arte/ History of Art Criticism. New York:  E. P. Dutton, 1936; Le origini della pittura veneziana.  1907; and Pissarro, Ludovico Rodo. Camille Pissarro: son art--son œuvre. Paris: P. Rosenberg, 1939; Four steps toward modern art: Giorgione, Caravaggio, Manet, Cézanne. New York: Columbia University Press, 1956; Giorgione e il giorgionismo. Milan: U. Hoepli, 1913; Il gusto dei primitivi.  Bologna: N. Zanichelli, 1926.

2. obit1 ^Top

Date Accessed: 21 Sep. 2007
Title: JSTOR: Burlington Magazine: Vol. 104, No. 706, p. 35
URL: http://www.jstor.org/view/00076287/ap020167/02a00130/0
3. obit2 ^Top

Date Accessed: 21 Sep. 2007
Title: JSTOR: Burlington Magazine: Vol. 104, No. 706, p. 36
URL: http://www.jstor.org/view/00076287/ap020167/02a00130/1?frame=noframe&[email protected]/01cce4405a00501c98a04&dpi=3&config=jstor
4. photo ^Top

Date Accessed: 21 Sep. 2007
Title: http://www.fotomuseo.it/mostre/archivio/2006/venturi.jpg
URL: http://www.fotomuseo.it/mostre/archivio/2006/venturi.jpg

Bibliography ^ Top

Lionello Venturi. 21 Sep. 2007 <http://www.dictionaryofarthistorians.org/venturil.htm>.
JSTOR: Burlington Magazine: Vol. 104, No. 706, p. 35. 21 Sep. 2007 <http://www.jstor.org/view/00076287/ap020167/02a00130/0>.
JSTOR: Burlington Magazine: Vol. 104, No. 706, p. 36. 21 Sep. 2007 <http://www.jstor.org/view/00076287/ap020167/02a00130/1?frame=noframe&[email protected]/01cce4405a00501c98a04&dpi=3&config=jstor>.
http://www.fotomuseo.it/mostre/archivio/2006/venturi.jpg. 21 Sep. 2007 <http://www.fotomuseo.it/mostre/archivio/2006/venturi.jpg>.