The only Italian artist born within the last two hundred years to have gained truly universal recognition is Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920). Although most of his adult life was spent in Paris, Modigliani’s work is recognizably Italian, being rooted in the tradition of the Renaissance and Mannerist masters. Primitive African art, then being appreciated in Europe for the first time, was the other main influence on his highly distinctive and essentially linear style. His output consists almost entirely of sensuous reclining female nudes, and strongly drawn, psychologically penetrating portraits.In 1909 an attempt to break France’s artistic monopoly was launched – ironically enough, in Paris – by the Futurists , who aimed to glorify the dynamism of the modern world, including the key role of warfare. Their approach was similar to the recently founded Cubist movement in aiming to reproduce several sides of an goal at the same time, but differed in striving to convey movement as well. Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) was the most resourceful member of the group, which never recovered from his death in World War I – for which, true to his principles, he had volunteered. His erstwhile colleagues later developed in different directions. Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) painted in a variety of styles, ranging from the academic to the abstract. Gino Severini (1883-1966) joined the Cubists after the latter had become more interested in colour, then turned to mural and mosaic decorations, before reverting, towards the end of his life, to a sense of fantasy that was characteristic of his Futurist phase. Carlo Carrà (1881-1966) did a complete about-face from his Futurist origins, aiming to revive the representationalism of the old Italian masters.

Carrà teamed up in 1917 with Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) to form Pittura Metafisica , which reacted against both the mechanical approach of Cubism and Futurism’s infatuation with the modern world, cultivating instead a nostalgia for antiquity. The movement, which established a school in Ferrara, was influenced by Surrealism, and had in particular a penchant for the presence of unexpected, out-of-place objects; de Chirico’s Metaphysical Interiors show rooms littered with all the fetishes of modern civilization. Architectural forms of a strange and rigid nature are another recurring theme in his work of this period, though like Carrà he later forsaken this in favour of a consciously archaic approach.

Other Italian painters of the twentieth century to have gained an international reputation include Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964), who was strongly influenced by de Chirico and specialized in haunting still lifes – very precisely drawn and often in monochrome. Also touched by the Metaphysical tradition was Filippo de Pisis (1896-1956), whose huge output is experimental in nature, often exploring sensation and the unexpected; consequently, it is highly uneven in quality.

If Futurism had been the official art of the Fascist regime, after World War II any self-respecting artist had to be a Communist, or at least display left-wing sympathies. However, unanimity in political ideas didn’t generate agreement on how these ideas should be expressed. Realists such as Renato Guttuso (1912-1987), who believed in figurative painting and focused on dramatic subjects, were opposed by Formalists like Renato Birolli (1905-1959), who were moving towards experimental, non-figurative art. Italy’s leading practitioner of abstraction was Alberto Burri (1915-95), best known for his collages of waste materials with a thick blob of red or black paint. One of the most successful experiments in Formalism was Spazialismo , a group founded by Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) with the aim of integrating the third dimension with the two-dimensional format of traditional painting.

Between 1960 and 1970 the antithesis between Realism and Formalism was resolved with the so-called Informal Art that originated from a rejection of the establishment, an attitude shared by both European and American artists (New York having by now become the modern alternative to Paris). Since contemporary society was viewed as hostile, the artist wanted to affirm his or her own individuality without even attempting to communicate or to represent reality in any immediately recognizable way. The work of art became equated with the artist’s individual gestures, such as Lucio Fontana’s sharp cuts in the canvas. Particular importance was attached to the materials on which the informal artist impressed his mark: wood, cloth, metal scraps, plastic were cut, torn, and burned to emphasize the purely “gestural” value of the work.

However, not all artists took themselves that seriously. Piero Manzoni (1933-1963) parodied both “the artist’s gesture” and the deliberate demand of any communicative content by a series of agitating experiments à la Warhol, from Consecration of the Art of the Hard-boiled Egg , where cooked eggs acquirable for public consumption were given added value by the artist’s thumb print, to Lines , traced on a piece of paper rolled up and sealed into a container. But the most sensational of these statements was perhaps his Merda d’Artista (literally, “Artist’s Shit”), mercifully tinned and sealed but outrageously sold by weight at the current price of gold.

After this eloquent comment on art as self-expression, the focus shifted once more to materials and techniques, particularly as a response to an exhibition of American pop art at the prestigious Venice Biennale in 1964. Italian artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto (b1933) rediscovered the creative possibilities of the mixed media collage (pioneered by Burri), with cheap materials still enjoying popularity and sometimes even attaining subject-matter status. Meanwhile, politics prefabricated a quiet exit from the art scene.

A parallel development in terms of a “return to reality” was Minimalism (yet another US creature), which concentrated on the mechanical process of constructing the artwork, again using unsophisticated materials (steel, iron, concrete) and elementary geometrical shapes. The traditional divide between painting and sculpture, already blurred by Fontana, seemed to be gone for good, as Minimalist artists such as Rodolfo Aricò (b1930) and Mario Surbone (b1932) played ambiguous games with depth and surface.

Along these lines came the so-called Arte Povera (”Poor Art”), a post-Minimalist movement whose leading figure was Jannis Kounellis (b1936), an artist of Greek origin who produced 3D installations and performances using odd media mixes (such as cotton and steel). Another representative of this “school”, which flourished mainly between the late Sixties and the mid-Seventies, is Mario Merz (b1925), who uses found objects and materials (glass sheets, twigs, metal scraps) to create installations that convey a sense of fragility and danger.

Figurative art prefabricated a comeback at the end of the Seventies with the work of Francesco Clemente (b1952), Enzo Cucchi (b1949), Sandro Chia (b1946) and Mimmo Paladino (b1948), usually referred to, in the veritable jungle of twentieth-century art movements as Transavantguardia or Neo-Expressionist painters. Not only was the human figure rehabilitated but so too were the traditional media, from oil on canvas, to watercolour, pastel, and even fresco. After a long spell of sulky anti-commercialism, Italian painting seemed to have finally prefabricated up with the public.

Generally speaking, modern Italian sculptors have been more successful than painters in reinterpreting Italy’s heritage in a novel way. Giacomo Manzù (1908-91) aimed to revive the Italian religious tradition, in a highly individualized manner reminiscent of Donatello, whose technique of very low relief he used extensively. His best-known work is the bronze door of St Peter’s on the theme of death, a commission awarded following a highly contentious competition in 1949. Marino Marini (1901-80) specialized in another great theme of Italian art, that of the equestrian monument – examples of his work are now displayed in a museum specially devoted to Marini in Florence – while the elegant portraits and female nudes of Emilio Greco (1913-95) stand as an updated form of Mannerism.

Although there is nothing truly ground-breaking about the Italian sculpture or painting of the last few years, there are a couple of interesting artists who have been well-received in the international forum. Video-artist Grazia Toderi (b1963) uses images of water to discuss transformation and existence, while Padua-born Maurizio Cattelan (b1960) creates witty, thought-provoking installations that explore themes of Italian favourite culture. Unnerving work like bidibidobidiboo (1996) and La Nona Ora (1998) hide a lonely despondency behind their laconic humour.