عنوان

The theme of palingenesis in the Italian fin-de-siecle :

TLets389344

The theme of palingenesis in the Italian fin-de-siecle :

[Thesis]

Bestaggini, Antonella.

Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche and the later works of Giovanni Segantini (1886-1899).

Oxford Brookes University

1997

Ph.D.

Oxford Brookes University

1997

This thesis reconsiders the late pictorial production of Giovanni Segantini(1858-1899) in the wider philosophical and cultural context of fin-de-siecleItaly. Its primary aims are: first, to re-evaluate the artist's involvement withthe philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900); second, to offer aninterpretation of the intellectual concerns which informed Segantini'sadoption of a divisionist technique for the articulation of Symbolistaesthetics in his later work; third, to demonstrate the central role played bythe myth of rebirth (palingenetic myth) in informing the cultural climate ofthe fin-de-siecle. Evidence suggests that rather than being predominantlycharacterized by a set of pessimistic and decadent trends, the Italian fin-desieclewas permeated by a widespread concern with regeneration. Duringthe 1870s the absorption of Richard Wagner's ideas into the Italian culturalarena can be seen as one of the earliest and most significant manifestationsof such concern; Wagner's theories of cultural regeneration threw into reliefthe country's necessity for a national identity. Thus Chapter One offers abrief consideration of the ways in which Wagner's project for fostering thecultural unification of Germany through the power of myth and art came tohave profound resonances both in the political and intellectual spheres ofpost-Risorgimento Italy. Chapter Two then considers the pivotal role playedby the poet and political activist Gabriele D' Annunzio (1863-1938) intailoring Nietzschean and Wagnerian notions of cultural regeneration to thepeculiar context of the Italian tln-de-siecle with a view to embodying andengendering the archetypal homines noviwho would provide the catalyst forItaly's rebirth. Chapter Three moves on to tracing the dissemination ofpalingenetic discourse within the Positivist climate of turn-of-the-centuryItaly, and considers in comparative terms the regenerating ambitions whichunderpinned both the Positivist and Modernist paradigms. Chapter Fourconsiders the emergence of Italian Divisionism in the context of thecontemporary philosophical and cultural trends discussed in the precedingchapters. It also investigates Vittore Grubicy's theorization of 'musicalIdeism' as a pictorial correlative to the Schopenhauerian assertion of theprimacy of music over all the other arts. The chapter ends with aconsideration of Divisionism in relation to the notions of artistic andscientific 'truth', and the role played by Nietzschean philosophy indetermining a crisis of the principle of truth. Chapter Five explores in detailthe divergence of opinion between Segantini and his mentor Vittore Grubicyover the capacity for tangible elements of the material world to function assymbols of 'the Idea', and suggests that Segantini's use of technique torender the visibility of the idea was informed by his reading of Nietzsche.The chapter concludes with an interpretation of Segantini's last works asembodiments of his Nietzschean ethic and aesthetic of this-worldlytranscendence.

Arts

Bestaggini, Antonella.

Oxford Brookes University

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y