Photographing Italy - Dynamism, Ideology, and Power: Photographs of a Modern Italy - Part #3
By the end of the 19th-century, photography had radically changed the history of painting. Finally freed from the shackles of realism, early modern painting could finally explore the uncharted waters of expressive abstraction. In Italy, brothers Arturo and Carlo Ludovico founded “Fotodinamism”, an experimental photographic adaptation of futurist ideals. In 1930, The Manifesto della Fotografia Futurista placed Italy at the forefront of cutting-edge photographic innovation in which darkroom manipulations, montage, collage, multiple exposures, and theatrical set-ups played important roles.
Soon after, as Futurist ideologies began to align with those of Mussolini’s fascist regime, photography also played a critical role in the visual construction of a new ideological aesthetic language. Italian propaganda posters capitalized on experimental photographic techniques and innovative graphic design to bolster and amplify fascist sentiments and ideals of strength, purity, and integrity.