Renato Bertelli
Renato Bertelli (* 1900 in Lastra a Signa near Florence , † 1974 in Florence) was an Italian artist of futurism who was close to fascism .
Life
He became known with his Mussolini bust "Profilo continuo / Dux" from 1933. In this sculpture made of black painted terracotta, he combined the ideas of futurism of energy, movement, simultaneity and speed. It shows Mussolini's profile rotated 360 ° around the vertical so that it looks in all directions at the same time. In doing so, Bertelli refers to the ancient theme of the Janus head in the spirit of fascist ideology and transfers it to the modern machine aesthetics and dynamism of futurism.
Mussolini had recognized the sculpture as an official portrait and so it was reproduced in many different sizes and materials, mainly in metal, but also in marble. It was initially intended to furnish the Case del Fascio , the party headquarters of the Partito Nazionale Fascista , but it also went on sale and was produced with the inscription ESPOSIZIONE UNIVERSALE ROMA 1942 - XX as a souvenir for the 1942 World Exhibition in Rome, which was due to the start of the war Italy but did not take place.
A copy of this sculpture can be seen in the Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto . There is no indication on the explanation board that Bertelli's sculpture represents the Duce . This museum has its own section dedicated to the study of futurism. A second example of the original terracotta version is in the Imperial War Museum in London.
literature
- General Artist Lexicon , Volume 10, 1995, p. 50
- Marco Moretti: Renato Bertelli (1900-1974). Masso delle Fate, Signa 2007 (Italian)
Web links
- Political Propaganda - Profilo continuo del Duce ( Memento of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) with illustration (English)
- Inauguration della mostra “Renato Bertelli, la parentesi futurista” ( Memento of January 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). Exhibition from June 1 to August 26, 2012 in the Casa Mussolini , Mussolini's birthplace in Predappio (Italian, accessed August 3, 2014)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Data sheet of the sculpture with illustration in the Imperial War Museum in London (English, accessed on August 3, 2014).
- ↑ cf. Political Propaganda - Profilo contino del Duce. ( Memento of September 27, 2007 on the Internet Archive ) Wolfsonian Museum, Miami, FL (English).
- ↑ Il “Profilo continuo del Duce”. MyMilitaria.it (Italian, accessed August 3, 2014).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bertelli, Renato |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian fascist sculptor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1900 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lastra a Signa , near Florence |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1974 |
| Place of death | Florence |