Marisa Mori and the Futurists by Jennifer Griffiths

Author:Jennifer Griffiths
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781350232655
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2022-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

The Myth of Icarus

In the age of aviation it is perhaps not surprising to discover a proliferation of references to Icarus and retellings of the ancient Greek myth, as in Blériot’s aforementioned quotation. In his first Futurist novel Marinetti reimagined this cautionary tale of an inventor father, Daedalus, and his hubristic son, Icarus, as a triumph rather than a failure, as a victory of culture over nature. His protagonist, Mafarka (a Futurist Daedalus), builds a mechanomorphic flying superson, Gazurmah (a Futurist Icarus), who kills his father and conquers the anthropomorphized earth and sky. Marinetti’s new Icarus no longer falls to earth, brought down by the forces of nature and his own arrogance, but is instead justified in that arrogance to conquer the world. Several Fascist revivals similarly recast Icarus from the foolish youth of myth into a conquering hero, exemplifying Fascism’s consistent effort to root itself in the language of youth, history, tradition, and the sacred.

One such instance occurred during the Esposizione Aeronautica Italiana, or EAI (Exhibition of Italian Aeronautics) which took place at the Palazzo dell’Arte in Milan between June and October 1934. Like the Mostra della Rivoluzione Fascista, or MRF (Exhibition of the Fascist Revolution) it helped to foster a mythic sense of the regime’s origin and purpose in the public eye.29 Over a million people visited the show, which represented a high point of modern architectural achievement in Italy,30 and sought to establish a lineage of Italian aviation history stretching back to the mythic Mediterranean figure, to whom a culminating room on the first floor, the Hall of Icarus, was dedicated. He was rendered in sculpture and, rather than falling, he was seen rising up to the second floor. If the first floor celebrated pre-fascist aerial achievements through the heroic exploits of individuals like Francesco Baracca and Gabriele D’Annunzio, then the upper floor documented the new heights of Fascist heroism via Mussolini, “Primo Pilota,” and Balbo, “trasvolatore.” As one scholar argues, the exhibition contributed to the regime’s construction of a “mythical politics of time,” “rewriting” the story of Icarus as a forerunner for the Fascist “New Man” who “ventured beyond known limits and aimed ever higher.”31

Another permanent display was the decoration of the Collegio Aeronautico or Aeronautics Institute in Forli, built in 1937. Black and white mosaics by Angelo Canevari pay homage to Icarus as a young man who dreamed of flight before his time. Mussolini’s words are embedded in stone: “The dream of Icarus the dream of every generation is being transformed into reality. Man has conquered the air.”32 Francesco Saverio Palozzi’s Icarus (1940) sculpture still stands outside, depicting the proud youth before leaving the ground, chest out and chin up. Erected some years after the completion of the building, it honors Mussolini’s son, Bruno, an experienced pilot who died in an aviation accident.

Mori was almost certainly familiar with these heroic rebrandings of Icarus. She may also have been aware of Lauro de Bosis, a pilot, translator, author, and antifascist who brought international attention to the antifascist resistance and whose life tragically imitated his art.

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