Diss.--Tübingen. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 274-307.

My study of Edgar Degas provides an arena for the examination of how artistic production can elucidate the complexities of cultural diversity, particularly through the evolution of artistic identity through overlapping cultural influences. Previous scholarship on Degas has been mainly Francophile in orientation, while my work focuses on the parameters of artistic reciprocity between Degas and nineteenth-century Italian art, artists and critics. Degas spent the majority of his formative years (July 1856-April 1860) traveling and studying in Italy, with extended periods in Rome, Naples and Florence. He actively sketched after the Italian Renaissance masters, participated in life drawing sessions at the Villa Medici, and partook in artistic exchange through friendships established in the social atmosphere of cafés. Familial bonds, through blood and marriage, to Naples and Florence provided Degas with additional ties to the peninsula. His camaraderie with Italian artists and critics did not end upon his return to Paris. Rather, these Italian artists became a vital part of Degas' social circle, with whom he travelled, dined, and participated in a variety of artistic exchanges. These exchanges fundamentally impacted Degas' oeuvre, as well as those of the Italians. Exploring Degas' connections with the art community of Italy allows a reevaluation of the traditional understanding of Degas as a French artist. It focuses attention on the impact that Italian aesthetics had on the formation of Degas' style which has been historically understood as tied to Parisian modernism. Degas provides a unique opportunity to study the impact of multicultural influences arising from his attention to the artistic methodology of the French Academy, his Italian lineage and his role as a French tourist and artist in Italy. Finding the structure of the École too constrictive and instead preferring to forge a parallel route to Academicism, Degas traveled to the peninsula outside of the sphere of the French Academy. He relied on a shared language, culture and familial connections to remain abroad longer and travel more extensively than many of his contemporaries. As a result Degas is much more rooted in the Italian culture than any of his French contemporaries. The many dimensions and experiences of Degas' Italian sojourn affected the burgeoning career of an artist who intended to join the ranks of the history painters, and instead found himself a critical observer of contemporary life. What I elucidate in this dissertation is how deeply rooted Degas is in the language, cultures and history of Italy. These unbreakable ties, the many aspects of the Italian cultures in which he feels at home are absorbed and brought back to Paris and into his oeuvre. This study seeks to demonstrate that Degas was neither wholly French nor Italian (or for that matter, American), rather his multiple dimensions make for an international, truly cosmopolitan artist in the second half of the nineteenth century. Furthermore, I engage and explore the social and artistic relationships of a group of artists who were acutely aware of the pressures of nationalism and the boundaries of nations, but while conceding to these realities, did not want to be limited by such demarcations. This reading of the evidence allows for a more meaningful investigation of the modalities of the formation of artistic identity and dialogue in the nineteenth century.

Beginning around 1850, Italians found themselves in the midst of an identity crisis. Europeans in France and England had surpassed Italians in terms of political, economic, and social progress. Italians seemed trapped in the past, clinging to their magnificent artistic heritage. However, new cultural and social movements were on the rise in Italy that attempted to throw off the domination of other European entities and forge a promising future for Italy. The Macchiaioli, a group of Italian modern artists who painted from 1853 to 1908, were the first group to address contemporary social issues such as class struggle and national weakness. Their art called for progressive change and arguably influenced how the later Italian Futurist movement would address similar concerns beginning in 1909. One of the Macchiaioli, Telemaco Signorini, advocated the development of new technologies and industries—dominated by men—in realist paintings from 1853 to 1901. Futurist artist Giacomo Balla gained recognition for promoting similar ideas in a more radical fashion. Most art historians believe that the Futurists were influenced by trends originating in Western Europe, specifically the French avant-garde. This thesis argues that the Futurists were significantly influenced by an Italian tradition that originated with the Macchiaioli. The Macchiaioli were animated by a nationalistic fervor and a desire to create a strong and unified Italian state. They used art and literature to advance progressive ideals based on masculine acts. The Futurists responded to similar stimuli in their day. In the absence of a powerful national identity, Signorini and Balla employed modern artistic styles to idealize masculine solutions to social problems. Both ultimately foresaw a world in which technology, mastered by men, would elevate Italian society.

Il presente studio intende proporre una rilettura originale della pittura di Nomellini, fondata su un percorso critico incentrato sulle iconografie del lavoro. Tale analisi è limitata cronologicamente alla prima fase della sua attività: dagli esordi fiorentini, intorno al 1886, alle partecipazioni alla Biennale di Venezia nelle edizioni del 1907 e del 1909. Si intende così definire un ideale catalogo delle opere dedicate al tema del lavoro capace di ripercorrere e di precisare quell’evoluzione estetico-ideologica già messa in luce da Ragghianti, che aveva portato diversi artisti inizialmente ispirati a ideali sociali umanitaristi dapprima verso una «significazione idealista» di carattere dannunziano e poi all’adesione a un mitografismo nazionalista e «immaginifico». Uno sviluppo che nel caso di Nomellini parte da dipinti che ritraggono i contadini della Maremma secondo una prospettiva sociale umanitaria e con uno stile ancora in bilico tra il naturalismo e la rappresentazione di un nuovo senso della luce, e che trova un provvisorio punto d’arrivo nelle tele genovesi di dichiarata critica sociale, realizzate con la tecnica divisionista. Se la svolta simbolista di Nomellini comporta anche la scomparsa del tema del lavoro dalla sua pittura, l’iconografia del lavoro si ripresenta nuovamente nella produzione nomelliniana del primo decennio del Novecento, trasfigurata però da una nuova prospettiva ideologica tesa a una mitizzazione nazionalista del mondo del lavoro e dei lavoratori e affrontata con un divisionismo ormai maturo. / The present study intends to propose an original reinterpretation of Nomellini's painting, based on a critical path centered on the iconographies of work. This analysis is chronologically limited to the first phase of his activity: from the Florentine beginnings, around 1886, to the participations in the Venice Biennale in the 1907 and 1909 editions. Thus we intend to define an ideal catalog of works dedicated to the theme of work capable of retrace and clarify that aesthetic-ideological evolution already highlighted by Ragghianti, which had led several artists initially inspired by humanitarian social ideals, first towards an "idealist signification" of a D'Annunzian character and then adherence to a nationalist and "imaginative mythography ". A development that in Nomellini's case starts from paintings that portray the peasants of the Maremma according to a humanitarian social perspective and with a style still poised between naturalism and the representation of a new sense of light, and which finds a provisional point of arrival in the Genoese canvases of declared social criticism, made with the pointillist technique. If Nomellini's symbolist turning point also entails the disappearance of the theme of work from his painting, the iconography of work reappears again in Nomellini's production of the first decade of the twentieth century, transfigured, however, by a new ideological perspective aimed at a nationalist mythization of the world of work and workers and faced with a mature divisionism.

Giovanni Boldini's La Zingara is an image fraught with mystery. As a lesser-known artist, scholarship on him and this painting is sparse. This thesis details the innovations that Boldini exhibited as an artist working in nineteenth-century France, using the lenses of feminist and Marxist art historical readings for a new interpretation of this piece. Participating in the oppressive systems of capitalism, sexism, and prejudice, Giovanni Boldini created the image of La Zingara for personal gain. Painting a subject from a marginalized community, the Romani, Boldini benefitted from those systems. He "others"his Italian heritage and modern art developments to construct a portraiture totally unique to him and his oeuvre. While other artists worked on similar subjects at the time, Giovanni Boldini set himself apart through his updating of classic styles, drawing upon on the Christian iconography of the Byzantine tradition, the portraiture of Trecento and the Renaissance, and some ancient Roman conventions. Additionally, the artist capitalizes on the growing interest and commodification of japonisme to create a highly marketable work. Furthermore, this thesis explores issues of gender and class to acknowledge the difficult place that women have filled in the history of art. Finally, this thesis argues that Boldini deserves a greater place in the history of art.