Sironi's pre-fascist art was mainly in 1920's, focused on urban landscapes - unlike futurists, his works were grounded in reality (but not realism; he still did not conform to norms of 19th/early 20th century art
Concentrated on Milanese outskirts, where working class live)d (as well as him, because he was a poor artist)

Urban Landscapes had used a number of key themes:

Use of limited number of mainly cubic forms
Use of light-dark contrast (chiaroscuro)
Repetitive window boxes
Monumentalisation of factories and public housing (The urban landscape itself was the protagonist of these works)
Empty, silent streets (or the only things to be heard were the factories or vehicles; human silence) - Solitude
Sironi’s city spaces ‘are at once alienating and authoritative’ (E. Braun)
Lone trains, trams, trucks or stylized human figures

Other themes included:

Futurism - magnification and aggression of urban life
Metaphysical painting - Theme of immobility
Influences - Giorgio de Chirico & Carlo Carrà

The symbols of industrial progress glorified by Futurism (factories, railways, etc) have been deprived of the bustling life glorified by the supports of the new and turned into timeless monuments. The vibrant metropolis is turned into ‘brooding wasteland’ (E. Braun)
- Although Sironi was a futurist sympathizer his work still highlighted the negative aspects of urbanisation [alienation]

	Created by Jamal Hassan almost 8 years ago

University Italian (Visions Of Modernity) Note on Cities - Mario Sironi, created by Jamal Hassan on 21/02/2017.