Heretical Aesthetics: Pasolini on Painting

Pier Paolo Pasolini was a poet, filmmaker, novelist, and political martyr who was also a keen critic of painting. He studied under Roberto Longhi and set out to contaminate art criticism with semiotics, dialectology, and film theory. This book offers numerous texts previously available only in Italian, accompanied by an editorial note elucidating their place in post-war Italian culture.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 01 August 2023
Publisher: Verso Books

Pier Paolo Pasolini, a renowned Marxist intellectual of the 20th century, was a multifaceted artist who excelled in poetry, filmmaking, novel writing, and political activism. In addition to his artistic pursuits, Pasolini was also a passionate critic of painting. While he was an intermittently practicing artist himself, he studied under the esteemed art historian Roberto Longhi, whose teachings shaped his lifelong fascination with figurative painting and its profound influence on cinema.

Pasolini embarked on a deliberate mission to infuse art criticism with the principles of semiotics, dialectology, and film theory. He authored catalog essays, exhibition reviews, and poems, alongside autobiographical meditations and public lectures on painting. His unique blend of Communism, classicism, localism, civic universalism, iconophilia, and aesthetic heresy animated and antagonized Cold War culture, making him one of the most influential European contemporaries of his time.

This book presents a collection of previously unavailable texts in Italian, accompanied by editorial notes that contextualize their significance within the tumultuous post-war Italian cultural landscape. The anthology is prefaced by the renowned art historian T.J. Clark, who offers a historical essay on Pasolini's radical aesthetics, providing a foundation for the subsequent readings.

One hundred years after his birth, Heretical Aesthetics sheds light on one of the most consequential aspects of Pasolini's intellectual life, further illuminating his vast cinematic and poetic corpus. By delving into his critical engagement with painting, this anthology offers a deeper understanding of Pasolini's artistic vision and its enduring impact on the world of art and literature.

Weight: 300g
Dimension: 210 x 140 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781804291283