The state of the art today? Guttuso explained it 50 years ago.

In the Sicilian master's articles, the portrait of intellectual conformism: taking sides for convenience, the aversion towards the figurative, the obtuse xenophilia And it wasn't just homework, but a mature text, the one on the Futurist Pippo Rizzo. During the twenty years of the Futurist movement, the young Guttuso contributed to important publications such as Primato, a creation of Minister Bottai, with prominent contributions delivered with an incredible self-assurance that led him to engage in polemics even with friends and teachers. He didn't pay for his immodesty with scorched earth, as would happen today in the touchy, mafia-like world of art, but rather grew increasingly in general esteem. In the articles collected by Bompiani in this small monument (almost two thousand pages, €50) simply titled Scritti, the level of cultural debate, which we can only dream of today, and the great freedom of judgment, are astonishing. But weren't these the times of the ferocious regime? Probably in the 1930s it was enough to declare oneself a fascist, just as in the 1950s it was enough to declare oneself a communist, and then one could say and do what one wanted. Of course, the toll of flattery was heavy: "Our greatest joy is realizing every moment that we are in too good agreement with Mussolini," Guttuso declared in 1934. Later, changing colors but not attitude, he wrote with a thousand reverences: "Comrade Tortorella" (culture director of Berlinguer's PCI), "Comrade Sciaurov" (who was he?), "Comrade Napolitano" (this one, however, I seem to recognize)... With the cunning of a successful artist, he paid homage to the tyranny of the moment to guarantee his own freedom. During the dark years of Togliatti's reign, Guttuso managed to circumvent Soviet-derived socialist realism with specious, yet effective, arguments. Thus, in Moscow, he was able to win the Lenin Prize, in Rome, the countesses, participate in communist congresses in Poland, and in high society life in Italy. Today's painters are not as flexible, as cunning, or even as literate, and therefore their works will remain, but not a single line (in half a century, I'm a ready prophet, no Bompiani will collect their emails, posts, and tweets in an anthology). Yet, if you look closely, almost nothing has changed. For starters, relationships still matter, and the reserved artist who lives in seclusion today, as then, can cling to the tram. Political parties matter less, undeniably, but a left-wing stance is always beneficial. If he had remained a fascist after the war, Guttuso would have struggled to become a city councilor, while unwavering communist orthodoxy guaranteed him a seat in the Senate, which added prestige to prestige and certainly didn't lower his standing. Even in the 1970s, it wasn't healthy to appear conservative, much less reactionary. On the occasion of a "return to painting" (a constant in the Italian art scene, where painting returns every decade because no one pays attention to the fact that it never left), a couple of critics with zealous progressive conformism accused the figurative genre of being, as such, right-wing. In the pages of L'Espresso, Guttuso reacted like a lion to defend his own history and the autonomy of art: "Painting human figures with a brush is, in itself, neither regressive nor progressive." Decades pass and not even the Biennale has changed: in 1953, the prince of Italian painters complained about the lack of space given to Italian artists, an article that could have appeared unchanged in 2003 or early 2013. And given the perennial xenophilia of the institutions responsible, I'm certain it could be published, with minimal changes, in 2023. Also timeless is the reasonable proposal to abolish the provinces, useless since the days of Berta, and a denunciation of the rampant overbuilding of Sicily that could appear tomorrow in the same newspaper, the Corriere della Sera, perhaps signed by Gian Antonio Stella. More than Guttuso, in the pages of the third part of the book, entitled "Civil Commitment and Defense of Artistic Heritage," one seems to hear Ecclesiastes speaking: "Nihil sub sole novi." Reading the articles opposing the loans of delicate paintings and priceless statues, I had to rub my eyes and check the signature: they seem to be written by Tomaso Montanari, the anti-Renzi art historian who, however, was little more than a child when the transportability of the Riace Bronzes was first being discussed. I also rub my brain, and it occurs to me that during the years of Guttuso's righteous indignation over the ruin of landscapes and museums, Berlusconi wasn't even around, much less his minister Bondi, who at a certain point seemed to be responsible for every collapse, every trade, every insensitivity. Guttuso unwittingly reminds us that the attack on Italy's artistic heritage is at least as old a history as the Italian Republic itself.