Scapigliatura

movement 1860s-1880s Italy Europe

Scapigliatura was a bohemian movement in post-Risorgimento Italy, centered in Milan from the 1860s, uniting poets, writers, musicians, painters and sculptors in revolt against bourgeois and academic culture. The name - literally unkempt or dishevelled, the Italian answer to the French bohème - comes from Cletto Arrighi's 1860 novel La Scapigliatura e il 6 Febbraio. Fed by German Romanticism, French bohemians, Baudelaire, Poe and Wagner, its members scandalized conservative Italy through journals and tavern cenacles. On the visual side, painters Tranquillo Cremona and Daniele Ranzoni developed a vaporous, melancholic portraiture of soft edges and silvery tones that rejected academic finish, while poet-painter Emilio Praga and Arrigo Boito, composer of Mefistofele, bridged the arts. The movement's restless cosmopolitanism and loose technique opened the way for later Italian realism and modernism.

Emilio Praga, Carlo Dossi & Luigi Conconi
Emilio Praga, Carlo Dossi & Luigi ConconiPublic domain (credit: Unknown author Unknown author) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Soft, dissolving edges; forms blurred into a vaporous haze
  • Muted, silvery tonality - browns, greys, subdued flesh tints
  • Loose, nervous brushwork that refuses academic finish
  • Intimate, melancholic subjects: bohemian interiors, reveries, troubled portraits
  • Dreamy or weary expressions and sentimental mood
  • Informal, almost snapshot-like compositions rather than staged scenes

Key figures

  • Emilio Praga (1839-1875) — Poet and painter, a leading voice of the movement (Penombre, 1864)
  • Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) — Poet and composer of Mefistofele, who wrote both libretto and music
  • Tranquillo Cremona (1837-1878) — Painter who perfected the group's vaporous, soft-edged portraiture
  • Daniele Ranzoni (1843-1889) — Painter of silvery, blurred figures and psychological portraits
  • Cletto Arrighi (1830-1906) — Writer whose 1860 novel gave the movement its name

Example works

  • Mefistofele — Arrigo Boito (1868)
  • Amleto — Franco Faccio (1865)
  • Penombre — Emilio Praga (1864)

Sources

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