Born near Palermo, Sicily in 1911, Guttuso was greatly infulenced by Socialist Realism but developed his own unique painting style that, late in his career, tended toward Surrealism. He passionately opposed fascism and the mafia, and joined the banned Italian Communist Party in 1940. He considered himself a political painter and his works often expressed his beliefs and positions, for example the above homage to the exiled leader of the communist party, Palmiro Togliatti.
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If our old––and by now very close––friend Numa Pompilius was the most religious of all Rome’s kings, and the most peaceful, then Tullus Hostilius was the most aggressive. The most bloodthirsty. The most hostile. Hostile Hostilius! Could that be where the word comes from? Oh, goodness, etymology gets me so excited! With but a moment’s worth of Google-powered research, I see that hostile comes from the Latin hostilis (of an enemy), which in turn comes from hostis (enemy). What do you think, was the word hostile derived from this king’s antagonistic behavior, or did he earn the name because of his behavior?
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I am not going to pretend that Paul Klee, the Swiss-born German artist whose work was influenced by expressionism, cubism and surrealism, is my favorite artist. In fact, I visited the Paul Klee Museum in Berne in 2008, and I concluded that I had seen more than enough of his art to last me for the rest of my hopefully long life. So I will admit that I didn't whoop with joy when I heard that an exhibit of his work was coming to Rome. But I have to give it to him, his works are incredibly diverse and contrasting from one another. You could not possibly be bored by an exhibition of his art. Overwhelmed, perhaps. Bored, no.
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I have a secret dream. A deep, burning desire that comes upon me strongly almost every time I walk down a busy street in Rome, and often when I'm walking down a quiet one. I want to be a vigilessa. A lady traffic-cop. Now I don't mean that I actually think that it could happen, or that I would ever go through with such a thing--even if it were possible. But every time I see someone double- or triple-parked, I long to flip out a ticket pad and write them a big fat multa, right on the spot. Or better yet, get their oversized SUV towed far, far away.
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