"Italy and the Great War diplomacy". An exhibition opening in Brussels

Sidney Sonnino
Sidney Sonnino portrayed here beside was the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs during the First World War, and also the Italian representative at the Peace Conference of Paris in 1919. He is therefore a key figure to understand Italian diplomacy of that time. We presume there will be enough space also for him at the upcoming exhibition opening the next 14th of January in Brussels at the Italian Cultural Institute, result of the cooperation between the staff of the Italian Foreign Affairs ministry, professor Italo Garzia and the Historic Archive of the office of the President of the Italian Republic. As far as we can understand from the first news, this exhibition deepens the origins, the developments and the results of the diplomacy initiatives "along three thematic and chronological axes". As we read in the news the exhibition tries to follow "the origins (Italian diplomacy hinging on the principle of nationality and territorial security), the war (wartime diplomacy and propaganda), and peace (diplomacy of peace)." A special attention has been put on the virtual part of the itinerary, thanks to "exceptional iconographic sources from the office of the President of the Republic on the King, Italy's foreign policy and the Red Cross's Ospedale Palace".

Info
Italy and the Great War diplomacy
Istituto Italiano di Cultura
Rue de Livourne 38, 1000 Brussels
Belgium
Tel. 02/533.27.20
email: iicbruxelles@esteri.it
http://www.iicbruxelles.esteri.it/IIC_Bruxelles/
(it is necessary to book your visit in advance)

An exhibition at National World War I Museum and Memorial explores what happened to the world’s largest painting

Special Exhibition Rearranging History: Daniel MacMorris and the Panthéon de la Guerre Opens Dec. 15 at National World War I Museum and Memorial

Press release

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The largest remaining intact sections of the Panthéon de la Guerre have been on exhibit at the National World War I Museum and Memorial for nearly 60 years. For the first time, since the painting was last shown in its entirety 75 years ago, the public has the opportunity to view additional fragments from the world’s largest painting.

Rearranging History: Daniel MacMorris and the Panthéon de la Guerre, a new special exhibition at the National World War I Museum and Memorial, helps answer the question:  what happened to the world’s largest painting?

“For the first time since the Panthéon de la Guerre was last shown as a complete painting in 1940, the public will be able to see key fragments from this important work of art,” Museum Senior Curator Doran Cart said. “It’s challenging to put in perspective how massive this painting was in its original form. Imagine a canvas longer than a football or soccer field – it was simply colossal in size and scope.”
At 402 feet in circumference and 45 feet in height, the Panthéon de la Guerre was not only the most ambitious artistic undertaking during World War I, but upon completion in 1918, it was the largest painting in the world at more than 18,000 square feet.
“Rearranging History: Daniel MacMorris and the Panthéon de la Guerre continues the Museum’s mission of providing compelling special exhibitions commemorating the centennial of World War I,” National World War I Museum and Memorial President and CEO Dr. Matthew Naylor said. “The majority of these fragments haven not been seen by the public in 75 years and we’re pleased to tell the fascinating story of this incredible painting.”

Forgotten after exhibitions in Europe and the United States, when artist Daniel MacMorris (1893-1981) learned from a 1953 Life magazine article that the Panthéon was in the U. S., he saw a golden opportunity. MacMorris, who was in charge of decorating the Liberty Memorial, knew the panorama intimately. He had seen it in Paris as a doughboy and had studied it closely in the 1920s as a student of the Panthéon artist Auguste Gorguet. MacMorris thought the Panthéon would be perfect for the one remaining wall in Memory Hall without a mural.
After acquiring the painting, MacMorris photographed it in detail. He cut out the figures in the photos and used these like movable puzzle pieces to work out how best to reduce and reconfigure the composition – an effort he compared to “whittling down a novel to Reader’s Digest condensation.” After deciding whom to include and where to place them, he took scissors to the canvas. He cut out selected figures, flags, and other passages and added these to either side of the original American section.

What happened to the unused portions of the original? By far most of what MacMorris did not use he threw away. He sent several larger, excised passages back to William Haussner, the Baltimore restaurateur and art collector who donated the Panthéon to the Liberty Memorial. Haussner displayed many of these in his eponymous restaurant until it closed in 1999, after which they were sold at auction. MacMorris doled out other pieces to the art students who helped him reconfigure the painting.  Still others he gave to influential Kansas Citians, some of whom have since donated the fragments back to the Museum.

Rearranging History: Daniel MacMorris and the Panthéon de la Guerre is open Tuesday, Dec. 15 through March 27, 2016 in Memory Hall. 

About the National World War I Museum and Memorial
The National World War I Museum and Memorial is America’s leading institution dedicated to remembering, interpreting and understanding the Great War and its enduring impact on the global community. The Museum holds the most diverse collection of World War I objects and documents in the world and is the second-oldest public museum dedicated to preserving the objects, history and experiences of the war. The Museum takes visitors of all ages on an epic journey through a transformative period and shares deeply personal stories of courage, honor, patriotism and sacrifice. Designated by Congress as America’s official World War I Museum and Memorial and located in downtown Kansas City, Mo., the National World War I Museum and Memorial inspires thought, dialogue and learning to make the experiences of the Great War era meaningful and relevant for present and future generations. To learn more, visit theworldwar.org.

The poets and the world war: "Dooleysprudence" by James Joyce

Joyce in 1915
Between celebration and parody. This is the main hybrid trait of Joyce's Dooleysprudence, a poem that the Irish novelist wrote in 1916 and first published in The Critical Writings of James Joyce (ed. Ellsworth Mason and Richard Ellmann) only forty-three years later, in 1959. In James Joyce A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Writings by A. Nicholas Fargnoli and Michael Patrick Gillespie we read that this poem is "Joyce's short satiric piece mocking the combatants of World War I. It was written in 1916 while Joyce was living in neutral Switzerland and depicts the uninvolved Mr Dooley, whose tranquil life is juxtaposed with the war. The character of Mr Dooley is derived from the philosophical tavernkeeper created by the Irish-American humorist Finley Peter Dunne, who was also the subject of a popular song with which Joyce was familiar, "Mr. Dooley," by Billy Jerome (1901). It's really something different from all the World War I poems we have published so far.


DOOLEYSPRUDENCE


Who is the man when all the gallant nations run to war
Goes home to have his dinner by the very first cablecar
And as he eats his cantelope contorts himself in mirth
To read the blatant bulletins of the rulers of the earth?

It’s Mr Dooley,
Mr Dooley,
The coolest chap our country ever knew
‘They are out to collar
The dime and dollar’
Says Mr Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the funny fellow who declines to go to church
Since pope and priest and parson left the poor man in the lurch
And taught their flocks the only way to save all human souls
Was piercing human bodies through with dumdum bulletholes?

It’s Mr Dooley,
Mr Dooley,
The mildest man our country ever knew
‘Who will release us
From jingo Jesus’
Prays Mr Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the meek philosopher who doesn’t care a damn
About the yellow peril or problem of Siam
And disbelieves that British Tar is water from life’s fount
And will not gulp the gospel of the German on the Mount?

It’s Mr Dooley,
Mr Dooley,
The broadest brain our country ever knew
‘The curse of Moses
On both your houses’
Cries Mr Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the cheerful imbecile who lights his long chibouk
With pages of the pandect, penal code and Doomsday Book
And wonders why bald justices are bound by law to wear
A toga and a wig made out of someone else’s hair?

It’s Mr Dooley,
Mr Dooley,
The finest fool our country ever knew
‘They took that toilette
From Pontius Pilate’
Thinks Mr Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the man who says he’ll go the whole and perfect hog
Before he pays the income tax or license for a dog
And when he licks a postage stamp regards with smiling scorn
The face of king or emperor or snout of unicorn?

It’s Mr Dooley,
Mr Dooley,
The wildest wag our country ever knew
‘O my poor tummy
His backside gummy!’
Moans Mr Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.
Who is the tranquil gentleman who won’t salute the State
Or serve Nebuchadnezzar or proletariat
But thinks that every son of man has quite enough to do
To paddle down the stream of life his personal canoe?

It’s Mr Dooley,
Mr Dooley,
The wisest wight our country ever knew
‘Poor Europe ambles
Like sheep to shambles’
Sighs Mr Dooley-ooley-ooley-oo.

Rediscovering Italian intellectuals: the new edition of the "Military Speeches" by Giovanni Boine. An interview with Chiara Catapano and Claudio Di Scalzo


Chiara Catapano, Claudio Di Scalzo and Andrea Aveto are the curators of an important forthcoming editorial project, namely the new edition of the "Military Speeches" (Discorsi militari, 1914) by the Italian writer and critic Giovanni Boine (1887 - 1917), probably the most neglected yet fundamental intellectual of the World War I period. We're pleased to offer you the following interview accompanied by the paintings of Stefano Parolari. 
Q: Could you briefly describe the book to the international audience of this World War I web site? 
A: The book offers, a hundred years after its release for the "Notebooks of the Voice" (“Quaderni della Voce”, a collection commissioned by Giuseppe Prezzolini with the publications of the literary journal "The Voice") the “Military Speeches” (Discorsi militari) of Giovanni Boine and some of its articles, really hard to find, which have appeared on some important national newspapers during the war years.
The “Military Speeches” are a kind of manual which intends to explain to every soldier concepts like homeland, honor, peace... and wants to be a compendium of the recent Italian history. It hasn’t be written for intellectuals, but for people who have just ended their elementary studies and it has been read by thousands of young people at the front. 

Q: Could you explain the original idea of this edition? Where does it come from? There are three curators: how did you cooperate? 
A: The idea came up to me and Claudio Di Scalzo studying the rich correspondence of the author, Giovanni Boine. We wanted to propose this study to the readers of our online magazine The Flying Dutchman (www.olandesevolante.com). We thought to create an anthology of some crucial literary passages to understand the cultural climate in Italy at the outbreak of the First World War. His correspondence (a wide work which has absorbed us for some years) has unveiled a refined wit, an argumentative mood with no compromise for anyone (the controversy with Benedetto Croce - David against Goliath - is perhaps the most evident example). Boine, like a lot of people at the time, was affected by tuberculosis: his premature death (he was 29) has allowed the dominant cultural groups to lead his opera to an equal premature oblivion. We don’t have to forget that after the II World War (the correspondence of the author was made available only from the 70s) the literary Critic wanted to interpret his work as fundamentally conservative, if not reactionary.
Nowadays we know that this schematically ideological "reading"is no longer sustainable.
Claudio Magris has written an incisive article in 2008 ("Why we must rediscover Boine," Corriere della sera, July 14, 2008), which invites us to read Boine.
The literary critic Carlo Bo who swept Giovanni Boine aside, in the years of his youth, in 2000, rediscovered the writer through his correspondence, and he formally apologized, admitting the mistake of reading it without grasping his genius.
Andrea Aveto has participated at the edition with a preface. He has intervened when the work was already at a good point but he gave us the occasion to learn more about Boine. He is one of the principal experts of the Ligurian author and he owns a correspondence with unpublished letters which have been recently discovered. It was natural to ask him to participate, and he gave a massive contribute for a different point of view on the re-presentation of "Military Speeches", something which no one had written yet and which enforced the luck of the text.

Q: What are the main points of intersection between the Italian writer and the First World War? 
A: The major point of interest, in our opinion, is the lucidity of Boine’s interpretation, of the historical events of his time and his surprising ability to predict the development of the future. When Italy had entered into the war, it ended up broken in two: neutralist and interventionists. There were movements such as Futurism of Marinetti, who supported the war as a "purification of the people"; and those who were against the "imperialist" massacre. The Boine’s point of view remains unique in the intellectual panorama of the time: he does not deny the past, as the futurists and the “vociani”, on the wave of a New Age and, at the same time, he doesn’t refer to the Tradition as a new religion to hold on to. He tries to solve within his conscience the node which dramatically involve a man in his historic contest and which, at his time, was supported by mass movements and ideologies. There are no "isms" that could mend the gap: he clearly states that each program will end in an ideology. The “Military Speeches” that we propose, as well as articles such as "Three Jews", which refers the thorny topic of Judaism are texts for which Boine has been crucified by some revisionist critics, but they were designed to open up the awareness of the complexity, even today, the theme.

Q: What did you discover while curating this new edition of the "Discorsi militari" ("Military Speeches")? What's new in your interpretation? 
A: The "Military Speeches" have to see the light after exactly a hundred years of their first release. This work has been too hastily judged by critics of the "left side" of the second middle of the '900 as propaganda and It has been misunderstood as justificatory thesis of the interventionism.
The truth is that this work shows its intents from the very beginning. It is an attempt to understand, to place this inevitable moment in the order of history. Boine tells us that from the reading of his book we might come out with new questions of a spiritual nature. It seems to suggest that the military life is also a form of freedom (the freedom to do our own duty); but between the lines Boine emphasizes the opposite: that the “civil” life has, without any doubt, no freedom as well. It is an illusion. So here is a “writer” who does not provide justification to anything, as they wanted us to believe. On the contrary, we see a man who thinks that before these events for which we can’t find a justification, it doesn’t exist a way to analyze them beyond any ideology and to place them in the world. Boine condemns this war in the letters to his friends and to the intellectuals who supported the interventionism. The “Military Speeches” is a manual that was distributed to the young people who were leaving to the front. There are summarized concepts like the homeland, the nation and the duty of a soldier. They are written in a language very different from what was his typical style. Here the language is intended for people who have received an education, but who are not writers.

Q: Let's go outside of Italy. Do they know Giovanni Boine? Why do you think we should encourage a wider and deeper knowledge of his work (with particular regards to the "Discorsi militari" ("Military Speeches")? 
A: Here in Italy Giovanni Boine is not really famous and rarely published. Often… If he is known he is, at the same time, misunderstood. Only few people have read his work, and what is know is what has been filtered by the critics who have made indigestible and contaminated his thought. Claudio Magris suggests that he remains a complex author, difficult to be read; the effort of the readers lays in leaving their prejudices, and in creating their own opinions. I do not think he is really well known abroad except for some University debate. Basically he is still unknown to the big audience. But I do believe that it is exactly in Europe that he could have his most fervent admirers, based on the fact that his thought is dip in the Mitteleurope philosophical musical and literary world. He studied Unamuno and Claudel; he attended lessons of Bergson and studied the best French literary tradition in Paris. He is interested even in Marx, whose works he wanted to read in German, because he wasn’t persuaded by other translations.

Q: Anything to add? (Even beside this book but keeping the focus on World War One and your studies and researches related to the war.) Thank you.
A: It would be necessary that all the work of Giovanni Boine, which is not a homogeneous collection yet, was rediscovered and translated for an international audience. For sure the author would find a big audience outside our borders. He was a spirit fell into the highest European literary and philosophical tradition; Italy, fragmented into a thousand provincialisms, cities, has not been able to understand him at that time. Today we would be ready to re-read him with a new spirit. Boine lived during the war and died a few months before its conclusion: his “eye which all-sees”, draws us into this world in an original way, creating new problems which we are not used to thinking about. He asks us to not be satisfied with the easy solutions that come from outside, but to become ourselves a sort of filter for the history. He asks us a greater effort with no promises of success. At the end of the day he lost: he died before reaching the destination. But it is precisely this effort, giving up everything which didn’t become evident in our conscious mind, that can the road to freedom. I would suggest to start to re-discover Boine from his letters, and then go deeper into his work: articles, studied philosophy, literature fragment which he interpreted in a very personal way. Boine is one of the best minds and spirits of our tradition, and it is time that we recognize it with honesty. 
Then I have to mention that the illustrations dedicated to the writer into the book, is a re-invention of painting which have been originated from real photographs by Stefano Parolari. 

Answers: Chiara Catapano and Claudio Di Scalzo
Paintings: Stefano Parolari
Translation of the answers: Martina Bradaschia