The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Venturi, Lionello

Born Apr. 25, 1885, in Modena; died Aug. 14, 1961, in Rome. Italian art scholar. Son and student of Adolfo Venturi (1856-1941), who was the author of the major work History of Italian Art (11 vols., 1901-40).

Venturi was a professor at the University of Turin (1915-32) and the University of Rome (from 1945). After refusing to take an oath of allegiance to fascism, he lived in France (1932-39) and the USA (1939-44). Venturi’s works on art history and art studies (Giorgione, 1913; History of Art Criticism, 1936; Cezanne, 1936; Painting and Painters, 1945; Italian Painting, three vols., 1950-52) are distinguished by clarity and accuracy of criticism and a bold presentation of broad historical problems. At the same time, the idealist methodology of Venturi, who was a follower of B. Croce, led him to acknowledge absolute freedom of individual self-expression as a fundamental artistic criterion.

WORKS

In Russian translation
Khudozhniki novogo vremeni. Moscow, 1956.
Ot Mane do Lotreka. Moscow, 1958.

REFERENCE

Scritti in onore di Lionello Venturi. Rome, 1957.

Mentioned in

Venturi, Lionello

References in periodicals archive

Da un lato, l'insegnamento universitario di Lionello Venturi (tra i suoi allievi si annoverano anche la pittrice e scrittrice Lalla Romano e lo storico dell'arte Giulio Carlo Argan), dall'altro il carisma del critico napoletano Edoardo Persico, che aveva raccolto attorno a se a Torino, dove era arrivato attratto da Gobetti, una cerchia di fedeli estimatori.

Lionello Venturi, anch'egli vicino a Giustizia e Liberta ma anche consigliere di Gualino e ideatore della sua importantissima collezione d'arte moderna e contemporanea, sosterra Levi fino al compimento della svolta deformatrice espressionista, in nuce nella pittura leviana fin dagli ultimi fuochi della stagione dei Sei.

poco tempo dopo che aveva dipinto l'Eroe cinese, a visitare to studio di Levi venne Lionello Venturi. Fu una delle ultime volte in cui il gusto del pittore e del critico si erano incontrati.

(7.) Si veda il contribute di Laura lamurri intitolato Carlo Levi e Lionello Venturi (lamurri, 2003: 55-63), che cita la memoria di Garosci (ACS-FCL b.

La pittura moderna di Carlo Levi

Other movements dedicated to abstraction, ranging from the Classical Abstraction group in Florence to the Concrete Abstraction of the influential art critic Lionello Venturi's Gruppo degli Otto, are displayed in the next four rooms.

Hymn to bravura: the 150th anniversary of modern Italy this year is the perfect moment to revist artists of the Italian avant-garde

However, making a major breakthrough was the contribution represented by the 'Sei Pittori' a group of six painters from Turin led by Lionello Venturi and re-echoing French Impressionism.

From a compositional standpoint, the tiles all show deliberately calculated relief and are conceived adopting consolidated geometric compositions, possibly bearing in mind the Rappelle a l'Ordre and reviving the Old Masters and the 'primitive taste' fostered by Lionello Venturi in his famous essay of 1926, which found a consensus in Italy among the artists and stirring the interest of critics as well (4).

The XX century ceramic 'Via Crucis' by Teonesto Deabate: Melanie Zefferino reports on the decoration of St Anthony Chapel after restoration

In 1910 there was no celebration on the anniversary of Caravaggio's death, even though Lionello Venturi, and in the next decade Roberto Longhi, had begun to resurrect the artist from obscurity.

'Unquestionably' Caravaggio: the unique qualities of the painter's original works are indisputable

Roger Fry; Kenneth Clark and Lionello Venturi extolled the sketches, condemning the exhibited versions as lifeless sacrifices to expediency.

Le temps retrouve: the Tate's gathering together for the first time of Constable's six-foot canvases reveals how childhood memories shaped his art