A National Artist

A national artist refers to a person who has been given high recognition for having made significant contributions towards the development of national arts in regard to music, theatre, literature, film, visual arts and other allied arts.  Italian artists are professional artists who have mastered all the themes of fine arts and are Italians by virtual of either working or living in Italy.

Italy is well known for its art and artistic culture.  It has been globally recognised for its numerous monuments such as the Leaning tower of Pisa and the Colosseum in Rome.  Italy is also famous for other fine arts, music, cinema, theatre and other forms of arts.

History of the Italian art

The origin of Italian art can be traced many centuries back with major happenings having began in the early 14th century (Feller 85).  Art in Italy has been marked by several eras or periods as they are commonly known this includes:

The Roman period

This began immediately after the end of the Punic wars which was marked by the invasion of the Greek into the Roman empire.  This era was marked by Hellenistic styles which were common in the Greek civilization.

There was cultic and decorative use of sculptures and mosaic pictorial presentations which are still evident from the remains of many temples and villas.  As the Roman period came to an end, more naturalistic and severe styles of art were developed at the centre of the empire and were later spread to the East of Italy and before moving to the Constantinople.

Byzantine period

Due to the collapse of the western capital of the Roman empire, Italy stayed under the leadership of Constantinople for close to a thousand years.  During this time, artists in the region were involved in many projects throughout Italy and the Byzantine styles were most dominant in all these projects.  This style extended throughout the 14th century.

Gothic period

The Gothic era was marked by various religious disputes and the Franciscans and the Dominicans were struggling to address the controversial issues within the aim of uniting the Roman catholic.

During this time, Giovanni and Giotto being the first painters in Italy revolutionised the role of an artist from being a copier of traditional social norms and beliefs to being a creative individual.  These two artists strived towards improving the depiction of the whole artistic figures into more realistic pictures (Gibbons and George 19).

By the 19th century, the art of Italy was marked with a lot of resurgence.  Italy’s unification which happened in early 1871 had all the local paintings which had been painted decades earlier already expired.  This caused a lot of embarrassment for the Italian artists who had to deal with the lost glory in order to define the national voice of a pre-Garibaldi state which had now been unified from dozens of antipathetic small states.

Panaroma period

Garibaldi Panaroma marked a special form of survival period for the public art in Italy which was prevalent in the 19th century.  During this time, the panaromas were easily found on display on the streets to provide visual and knowledgeable entertainment. This was linear paintings which served the purpose of interpreting history and news concerning such great cities such as Rome and Paris (Mohen 78).

The panaroma art work which depicted the life of Garibaldi is an example of a panaroma which was used to offer commercial entertainment during this era.  In order to keep up with the current happenings, most of the large panaromas were repainted over time but the small ones were just left to wear out.

Recently in 2007, the department of Italian studies offered financial support for the state’s national library to digitize the Garibaldi panaroma and make it available all over the world.  Etruscan bronze figures together with the terracotta funerary relief are some if the examples of the Italian traditions which were denounced after the Roman unification.