Mussolini's art portraits

All the arts were appropriated to the physical image of Mussolini, his muscular 'torso of bronze', and to the model of their production.

The theme of the athletic body of the Duce was already present in the Twenties, but at the beginning of the Thirties it received an additional impulse, as it was set at the centre of the propagandist campaign to spread the fascist style among Italians.⁷⁴

At a low artistic level, we find the Mussolini-subject in the illustration of books, posters, medals and postage stamps, in the show-rooms of amateur artists and in manufactured handicrafts. The common people, having received the message, exalted in their turn the effigy of the Duce, making his portrait even out of unsuitable materials, such as flowers or grains of corn.⁷⁵ Those Mussolini portraits were found hanging on cardboard in people's homes. It has been calculated that between eight to thirty million postcards - drawn from the photos of Mussolini - were circulated in fascist times.

The successful cult of the virile male, in fact, answered the well solidified feelings of Italian society, still deeply sexist and patriarchal.⁷⁶

At an intermediary artistic level - and in order to promote 'popular universal art' as a culture without any class distinction - great pictorial and mosaic decoration was launched for public buildings. Of course, this was an easier way to show Italian art, in comparison with museums, since usually common people felt uncomfortable in going to places of elite culture, such as traditional museums. This fact had already been denounced by the futurists, who accused museums of being mere symbols of 'obsession of culture'.⁷⁷

As for 'militant art', which was art openly set at the service of the political ideology of the regime, it was viewed as a "perfect means of spiritual government".⁷⁸ 'Militant art' was broadly encouraged by means of shows, contests and prizes, such as the annual Littoriali of Art, the Cremona Prize, and the periodic Trade Union Exhibitions.

There, the idealised images of virile bodies, belonging to the Duce and other athletic fascist men, were often shown in pseudo-photographic portraits.

The aesthetic value of those pictures was mainly based on the choice of beautiful models, in a tedious representation of the healthiness of the 'Italic Descent'.⁷⁹

Even figurative art of the highest level, which in the years of the regime was mostly expressed by the currents of the Futurism, Novecentismo and Modernismo, stuck - with some exceptions - to the themes proposed by Fascism, by creating sculptures and paintings inspired by them.

Once more, the principal theme was the athletic body of the Duce, which was portrayed standing or sitting on horseback, dressed like a Roman commander,⁸⁰ a Renaissance prince,⁸¹ a revolutionary hero,⁸² a sacred icon,⁸³ or portrayed as the hero of fanciful allegories.⁸⁴

In 1932, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Fascism, the Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution was held in Rome. It recalled some of the best figurative artists of the country who gave special attention to the human figure as an inspiring model for their art. Above all, the figure of Mussolini was the omnipresent subject in every showroom, as the synthesis of the Italian people and Fascism itself.⁸⁵

The architecture of the regime was monumental, following the Roman architectural style, but at the same time simplified in the squared lines of the Modernismo rational fashion. Even those architects broadly used the theme of the virile Duce's body, and that of the ideal fascist athlete, for decorating their buildings.

In the Mussolini Forum - an architectural complex designed by Enrico del Debbio in 1927 - the Stadio dei Marmi [Stadium of the Marbles] was one of the best examples of architecture in the 'fascis t style'. The superior perimeter of that stadium was decorated with 60 colossal statues of white marble, representing naked athletes as symbols of the eternal youth and virility of the new Italian.

The intent of these 4 metre-high colossuses was to evoke ancient Roman greatness, but actually they echoed both the Renaissance David statue by Michelangelo and the nineteenth century naked figures by Ingres. However, those statues not only stimulated malicious comments of Italian women and homosexual voyeurs,⁸⁶ but also the irritation of the Church of Rome and of 'respectable people' unaccustomed to nudity exhibited too openly.⁸⁷

Besides, in the architectural complex of the Mussolini Forum, a gigantic obelisk of marble was erected - weighing 300 tons - dedicated to the Duce, as the craftsman of every rebirth and animator of every enterprise. The obelisk, in recalling the granite image of the Duce, somehow represented the

phallic metaphor of him, and therefore perfectly suited the virile context of the Forum.⁸⁸

The Mussolini Forum was also planned to take a colossal bronze statue of 80 metres in height, symbolising the strength and virility of the new Italy.

Obviously, this half-naked Hercules should have had Mussolini's features but, after having moulded the gigantic head of the Duce, and his foot, in bronze, they realised that the complete work was technically impossible.

The plan was quietly set aside in great haste, and Mussolini was saddened.⁸⁹