Antonioni and the Aesthetics of Impurity - by Matilde Nardelli (Paperback)

About the Book

The book offers a radical rethinking of Michelangelo Antonioni's work. It argues against prevalent understandings of it in terms of both cinematic purity and indebtedness to painting.

Book Synopsis

Influential, innovative and aesthetically experimental, the films of Michelangelo Antonioni are widely recognized as both exemplars of cinema and key in ushering in its 'new' or 'modern' incarnation around 1960. Antonioni and the Aesthetics of Impurity offers a radical rethinking of the director's work. It argues against prevalent understandings of it in terms of both cinematic purity and indebtedness to painting. Reconnecting Antonioni's aesthetically audacious films of the 1960s and 1970s to the ferment of their historical time, Antonioni and the Aesthetics of Impurity brings into relief these works' crucial, yet overlooked, affinity with the new, 'impure', art practices - of John Cage, Franco Vaccari, Robert Smithson, Piero Gilardi and Andy Warhol among others - that precipitated the demotion of painting from its privileged position as a paradigm for all the arts. Revealing an Antonioni who embraced both mixed and mass media and reflected on them via cinema, the book replaces auteuristic, if not hagiographic, accounts of the director's work with a new understanding of its critical significance across the modern visual arts and culture more broadly.

From the Back Cover

'While the term is too frequently deployed in contexts such as this, brilliant is the most accurate word with which to describe Matilde Nardelli's book, which raises the bar for scholarship on Antonioni. It is endlessly inventive, original, and learned, while its elegant execution makes it a genuine pleasure to read. This book will stand for many years to come as the last word on Antonioni's relation to the other arts, but it is also the most interesting and challenging meditation that I know of on the question of cinema's intermediality, and is a landmark in the study of art cinema.' John David Rhodes, Corpus Christi College Michelangelo Antonioni's 1960s films are widely recognized as both exemplars of cinema and key texts in ushering in cinema's 'modern' incarnation. Reconnecting Antonioni's aesthetically audacious films of the 1960s to the ferment of their historical time, Antonioni and the Aesthetics of Impurity addresses these works' crucial, yet overlooked, affinity with the new 'impure' art practices that emerged in the period. At the same time, the book also offers a novel reading of the films' dialogue with postwar pictorial abstraction. Revealing an Antonioni who embraced both mixed and mass media and reflected on them via his cinema, the book replaces auteuristic accounts of the director's work with a new understanding of its critical significance in late-twentieth century cinema and visual culture. Matilde Nardelli teaches at the University of West London. Cover image: Michelangelo Antonioni, Untitled Painting (c. 1958-1962), watercolour and tempera paint on paper, 50 x 35 cm (c) Enrica Fico, courtesy of Gallerie d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea: Fondo Michelangelo Antonioni, Ferrara, Italy Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-4404-0 Barcode

Review Quotes

Nardelli lays the groundwork for approaches to art films which may be able to explore new areas of their textual and production ecologies beyond the horizon of critique.--Paolo Saporito, University College Cork "Annali d'italianistica"

While the term is too frequently deployed in contexts such as this, brilliant is the most accurate word with which to describe Matilde Nardelli's book, which raises the bar for scholarship on Antonioni. It is endlessly inventive, original, and learned, while its elegant execution makes it a genuine pleasure to read. This book will stand for many years to come as the last word on Antonioni's relation to the other arts, but it is also the most interesting and challenging meditation that I know of on the question of cinema's intermediality, and is a landmark in the study of art cinema.--John David Rhodes, Corpus Christi College

About the Author

Dr Matilde Nardelli is a Senior Lecturer in the London School of Film, Media and Design at the University of West London.