The Macchiaioli and the unification of Italy

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, the term 'Italy' was an abstract concept that intellectuals and artists since Dante had used to describe their imagined homeland rather than a political reality. The first group of artists who presented themselves as linked to the nation were the Tuscan Macchiaioli, whose emergence was made possible by the Prima Esposizione Italiana ('First Italian Exhibition') that was held in Florence in 1861, a matter of months after unification. (The name 'Macchiaioli' was taken from macchia which means 'sketch' or 'sketch technique'.) It was at this exhibition that, for the first time, artists who were living and working in different parts of the Italian peninsula were grouped together. As is well known, the centuries-long fragmentation of the Italian states and the numerous foreign dominations had signifi- cantly contributed to the absence of a 'national' art or culture. Moreover, the divided state of the peninsula did not facilitate exchanges between different regions. Not surprisingly, many nineteenth-century artists who, with unification, wished to expand their boundaries and horizons considered Italian life and art to be marked by cultural provincialism.