The Etruscan Influence: Campigli and Marini
- Rossella BLUE Mocerino
- Nov 17, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
The Etruscans were an ancient civilization that inhabited the Italian region between the Arno and Tiber rivers, reaching their peak in the 6th century BCE.
Two 20th-century artists deeply influenced by Etruscan art were the painter Massimo Campigli and the sculptor Marino Marini. Yet influence never meant imitation; both artists reinterpreted Etruscan motifs to forge their own distinct visual languages. While ancient art clearly shaped their mature work, Campigli’s paintings remain instantly distinguishable from Marini’s sculptures—and neither could ever be mistaken for Etruscan originals.
The Etruscans were themselves avid collectors and admirers of Greek art, yet they transformed the idealization of Greek imagery into more realistic, individualized representations. They created nude statues prior to the Greeks and skillfully integrated Eastern motifs into their compositions. Much like Campigli and Marini centuries later, the Etruscans absorbed external influences and made them distinctly their own—leaving behind a heritage that would later profoundly shape Roman art.
Marino Marini encountered Etruscan art at the Museo Archeologico in Florence and later at the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia in Rome. The collection at Villa Giulia also served as the catalyst for Massimo Campigli’s most celebrated work. Marini, who was born and raised in Tuscany, declared, "Io sono un etrusco" ("I am an Etruscan"), often referring to them as "i miei padri più vivi, più attuali, più vicini a noi" ("My ancestors—more alive, more relevant, closer to us"). For Campigli, the encounter was equally transformative: "At Villa Giulia, I met something that was already inside of me. I see, understand, and retain only what is already inside me," noting that a "pagan happiness entered my paintings in the spirit of both my subjects and work, which became freer and more lyrical."
What Campigli and Marini captured from Etruscan artifacts is the warmth and the polychrome colors of the terracotta sculptures, the use of many of their images and symbols - busts, urns, riders on horses, portraits of women wearing necklaces, the poses and frontal views of their subjects, the simplicity and realistic portrayal of their subjects and the look of wall frescoes. But no one but Marino Marini captures the physical and emotional relationship of rider and horse in his sculptures. By no means are the horses secondary to the human figure they carry. They are an integral part of the journey.
Massimo Campigli’s paintings are populated largely by women and very often by “twins”, two women with similar poses and similar serene facial characteristics. Campigli explains: ”And my faces are monotonous because, after all, I am always looking for just one face, as once did a whole period of art”.
I had the privilege of visiting the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in 2018. That same winter, while in Venice, I attended the Guggenheim’s retrospective “Marino Marini. Visual Passions.” Returning to Venice in 2021, I experienced “Massimo Campigli and the Etruscans” at Palazzo Franchetti.
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