Abstract

This article investigates the fruitful aesthetic imagery that unfolds in Antonioni's L'eclisse (1962). Conventionally read as a political study of human alienation, the film is also a brilliant exercise in Modernist aesthetics, building artistic connections between the latest trends in contemporary art (the "arte informale" and the "Movimento nucleare") and an already established avant-gardism (Futurism, "Scuola metafisica", Surrealism). In proposing diverse references to visual arts, this essay ultimately unveils Antonioni's passionate homage to twentieth-century iconic painters and sculptors such as Boccioni, Morandi, De Chirico, Magritte, Giacometti, Vedova, Baj, Dangelo, and Fontana.