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Italy during the 1960‘s experienced many social and political changes. Much of this was

caused by economic factors and the influence of modernization. The industrial urban areas of

northern Italy experienced rapid changes with the expansion of industry. Because of this new

job creation, Italy underwent a mass exodus of people from the largely rural south to the north.

With this major shift in the daily lives of Italians, many problems were created. (Ginsborg)

Italo Calvino, an Italian writer during this time, was living in one of these rapidly

industrialized cities. His experience in Turin caused him to write a novel exploring this

movement in Italian history through the lens of a working-class man and his family. This novel

was called Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City.

During the late 1960‘s, Italy also experienced political upheaval. With the relatively

recent fall of Fascism, and with the infringing influence of American consumerism and

capitalism, the political climate of the decade was restless. Protests over economic, political, and

social factors made their way into the art of the time. Specific to Italy, the movement of Arte

Povera dealt with reactions to the climate of Italy during the time as well as reactions to more

well-established art movements of the time. Arte Povera deals with much of the same topics as

the working classes in Italy experienced during this time.

One overlapping theme between these two things is that of nature within the context of

the new urban structure. By examining the references to nature into both Marcovaldo and Arte

Povera, the new role of nature can be seen in light of the rapid changes in Italy during the time.

We can also see the beginning of the growing relationship between nature and rapid urban

development that continues to be a pressing political issue to this day.

Italo Calvino‘s upbringing lent itself to him using nature in his works. His father worked

in agriculture and botany. This influence is apparent because Calvino had first studied

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Agriculture in college; however, he decided to switch majors to Modern Language. He then

began to focus on politics (he was an active member of the Communist Party at this time),

journalism and eventually, writing. (Nocentini 129-34)

He thought of the city as a symbol of humanity, and associated these two things together.

The city would be a theme that he would continually bring back throughout his career, as the

changes going on in Italy during the time period centered on urban expansion and advancement.

The new urban setting is explored in the perspective of a working-class citizen in Turin in

Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City. The main character, Marcovaldo, and his family are

relative newcomers to urban, industrial life. Because of this, Marcovaldo has a hard time

adjusting to the city and cannot seem to let go of life surrounded by and dependent on nature.

The city, to Marcovaldo, is imposing and nearly uninhabitable. Marcovaldo was written over the

span of eleven years; Calvino began the novel in the early 1950s and it was published in 1963.

Although Marcovaldo is a book about urban life, nature is central to many of the twenty

shorter stories that make up the novel; most of the events in the chapters, especially in the first

half, revolve around some object or happening provided by the natural world. In the second half

of Marcovaldo, nature appears in most of the sections, however, the latter half of the book begins

to focus less on nature and more on consumer culture. The structure of the book and the name of

the book itself, Seasons in the City, both allude to nature because of the cyclical passing of the

seasons. The fact that the structure of the novel is cyclical shows that time is passing, but in

many ways, Marcovaldo seems to be stuck in his situation in the city; nature and the city are at

odds here.

Calvino presents how nature is considered during mid-20th

Century Italy. These themes

include how Marcovaldo uses nature as an escape from the constrains of the daily life in the city,

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Marcovaldo‘s attempt to make nature provide for him and his family, the contamination and

pollution of the environment and how this affects city dwellers, the futile attempt of nature to

reclaim the land that the city is taking, and the estrangement of humanity from nature. Overall,

this book depicts nature as being destroyed by humanity. It has become grossly manipulated for

the purpose of humanity. Furthermore, the new urban structure has completely removed the

ability for humans to directly rely on nature, although Marcovaldo attempts to do this.

Marcovaldo tries to use nature as an escape from his daily life. He is trapped within the

city and within his job. Because of this, he fantasizes about nature. He holds it and rural life

much higher than city life. An example of this is in the ninth chapter when Marcovaldo goes

with his children to a section of the city that has trees and open field. The children are happy

there and even ask Marcovaldo if they could move there. Both Marcovaldo and his children see

the joy of living there, away from the city. However, this open space is owned by a mental

institution, and this section has been taken over by mentally ill patients. The children are

oblivious to who these people actually are, but Marcovaldo is uncomfortable. Marcovaldo has

fantasized about this area of nature; it seemed as if it could have been an escape. But the

happiness that he and his children get from nature has been ruined by humanity‘s presence. We

can see this same thing happen in the sixth chapter. Marcovaldo, in attempting to enjoy the river

beach with his children, is disappointed when he floats down the river and is thrust into a mass of

people that are overtaking nature.

In chapter ten, a group of cattle herders come through the city. The city dwellers come

out of their housing and watch. Marcovaldo‘s oldest son is fascinated by the cattle and runs

away with the herders. He remains with the herders during the entire summer without

communicating with his family. Instead of the rest of the family being worried about him as one

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might expect, the family is jealous of the son during his absence. Since he has not come back,

they imagined that he must be living an idyllic life in the pastures outside of the city. Once he

comes back, however, the story was much different. The son had managed to escape the city but

the life he lived with the cattle herders was harsh and in many ways worse than living in the city.

The nostalgia for living with nature and living in a rural area has proven disappointing for the

family. In this case, the city did not directly ruin their experience of living closer to nature.

However, indirectly, the city had removed the family from nature, and therefore caused their

distorted view of life outside the city. This chapter also brings up the idea that Italian life before

the living conditions of the city in Italy was looked upon nostalgically, and that Italians had

forgotten the problems associated with life before modernization.

The second chapter, ―Park-bench vacation‖, also shows Marcovaldo idealizing nature.

Additionally, the event in the chapter is an example of nature attempting to provide an

environment in the city but failing. Finally, it could be seen as an instance where nature is

constrained and infringed upon by the city. In the chapter, the area around the park bench

appears, to the protagonist, to be freeing from the imposing city that impedes on Marcovaldo‘s

life. He tries to sleep outside under the trees in the park in order to escape the city; however, he

cannot escape the city. There is a traffic light that keeps him awake, as well as the dead rats. He

would have been better off remaining inside his cramped living quarters.

In the fifth chapter, the chapter about the wasp cure, nature is appealing and hopeful for

Marcovaldo. It seems like it could provide for him, but instead it eventually causes him pain.

This same scenario is echoed in the third chapter, where Marcovaldo traps a pigeon for food.

This source of food is provided directly by nature; however, it is a failed attempt. The family

manages to catch and eat one bird, but they cannot continue doing this because people in the city

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will not let them eat pigeons. In the first chapter, titled ―Mushrooms in the city‖, we can see this

again. The presence of these mushrooms is a source of want by Marcovaldo and by others.

However, there are too many people and not enough resources, and once again the city has

limited nature‘s ability to provide. Chapter one also shows how nature attempts to hold onto its

place despite the creation of the city.

In the eleventh chapter overall, ―The poisonous rabbit,‖ echoes the point illustrated with

the mushrooms, the pigeons, the wasps, and the park bench. This is because the rabbit, a

promise for the bettering of Marcovaldo‘s life, fails him. The rabbit is poisoned and unfit for

consumption. In this way nature fails to provide in the city, and that nature has been polluted by

humanity. Chapter thirteen, ―Where the river is more blue?‖, is another example of

environmental contamination by the city. Because the river has been polluted by a factory,

Marcovaldo is unable to catch fish. Another instance of pollution is seen in chapter seventeen,

titled ―Smoke, wind, and soap-bubbles.‖ The children of Marcovaldo, after attempting (and

failing) to sell samples of soap, end up ridding the samples in the river. The river becomes

polluted by soap bubbles. Then, they contaminate the sky because the wind carries the bubbles

from the contaminated river up and they ―invaded the sky.‖ (Calvino 95)

In chapter fifteen, named ―The rain and the leaves‖, Marcovaldo rescues a plant from his

workplace, Sbav and Co., in order to nurture it. Living in the company‘s building, the plant was

unable to thrive because it was disconnected from nature; ―…it suffered, because staying there,

between the curtain and the umbrella-stand, it lacked light, air, and dew.‖ (Calvino 77) Firstly,

this plant, in its position between the curtain and umbrella stand, and it being described as not

seeming real, appears as though its absence from its natural setting has made it become artificial

like the other objects in the city. Marcovaldo wanted to put the plant outside and return it to its

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natural state, and ended up convincing his boss that he would take full responsibility for it.

Marcovaldo took it home and would put it out in the rain. Before, the sound of the rain was

disruptive to him; however, the sound of rain made him happy because he knew it was nurturing

the plant. (Calvino 80)

The plant ended up growing so much that it could no longer fit into the entrance hall

where it was originally placed. He was going to turn it into the nursery, but Marcovaldo could

not part with it. As he moved it through the streets, the plant began to dominate Marcovaldo and

the streets because of its size. Once the rain stopped, however, the plant-turned-tree had become

completely exhausted by its rapid growth and it shriveled into a yellow color. After turning

yellow the leaves began dropping, much to the excitement of the townspeople, and the plant

became a bare stick.

The nineteenth chapter, and the last chapter with emphasis or depiction of nature in the

city, is titled ―The garden of stubborn cats.‖ These stubborn and possibly dangerous cats, along

with frogs and other animals, have all congregated in a lone garden which has escaped

development. The animals literally stop the contractors from reaching the house, in spite of the

wishes of the owner of the house, who is trapped by the cats. At the end of this chapter, although

the garden is being destroyed, the animals still attempt to take over the development. This is

nature‘s feeble attempt to hold on in the face of the city.

In the eighth chapter, ―The Forest on the Superhighway‖, we see the complete

estrangement between humans and nature. Marcovaldo is searching for firewood but he cannot

find a forest. His children find a ‗forest‘, which is not actually a forest; it is a group of

billboards. They begin chopping down the billboards, sincerely believing they had found a forest

because they had not seen a real one before. The children are disconnected from nature in this

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chapter. This disconnection could be seen in chapter ten as well: the children did not know basic

things about the cattle that were moving through the city. Here, Calvino seems to be warning the

current generations about how future generations will lose touch with nature.

Although most of the final chapter of Marcovaldo does not deal with nature, the last few

concluding lines of the book do use nature. Highly metaphorical, Marcovaldo ends with a white

jack-hare running through the snow on the edge of a forest. The jack-hare is running parallel to a

dark forest, because in this dark forest there is a wolf chasing after it. This scene ends with the

jack-hare escaping, disappearing into the overwhelming white of the snow, as white as ―the

white of this page.‖ (Calvino 121) Before this final scene, the city ―seemed smaller, collected in

a luminous vessel, buried in the dark heart of the forest…‖ (Calvino 120) This final scene seems

to run counter to how nature has been presented in the rest of the book. Continually, we are

reminded of how nature has been overpowered by modern cities. However, here the city has

been contained within nature all along. Perhaps this is a reminder that, although we may not

realize it in a consumer-based world, and although we barely experience nature within the

context of the city, ultimately, humanity still does rely upon it.

Now, let us turn to Arte Povera before examining examples of nature and how it has been

used. Arte Povera, in its literal translation from Italian to English, means ―poor art.‖ It was

deemed this because it is the point ―where art and life converge.‖ This is in contrast to other

forms of art; art in these cases aim to imitate and comment on reality, thereby contrasting itself

with reality. (Celant 151) Therefore, Arte Povera does not represent an idea, but instead

translates an idea through matter. This idea is ideally presented without drawing from historical

symbolic reference, although it is realistically difficult to completely separate an artwork from

historical context. Arte Povera is also poor because it celebrates the everyday. It emphasizes

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basic, cheap materials and it is ―hymn to commonplace, primary elements—to nature…‖ (Celant

151) Germano Celant first organized Arte Povera exhibitions in 1967 and 1968. Arte Povera as

a movement came to an end around 197. (Cullinan 26)

Creating objects related to nature is suitable for the artist attempting to make an Arte

Povera work. Materials from nature, as we can even see in Marcovaldo, are almost always

readily found from our environment, and are free. Arte Povera incorporates nature into its works

because it also gives commentary on the modern times infringing on the simplicity of nature.

This is an example of modern capitalism attacking nature; the rich are attacking the poor.

There are many examples of Arte Povera works that include natural materials or that

mimic nature. One Arte Povera artist to consider is Jannis Kounellis. His 1967 Untitled work

features cacti spaced out evenly in long metal bins. (Figure 1) Although nature is present, the

plants are not growing naturally. This work has a clear connection to the chapter in Marcovaldo

where Marcovaldo takes care of the plant from Sbav and Co. When Marcovaldo first encounters

this plant, it is a piece of nature that has been thrown into a modernized and humanized

environment. In the case of Marcovaldo‘s plant and Kounellis‘s cacti, both plants make us

aware of how ―nature is haphazardly incorporated into daily life.‖ (Pinkus 90) The plants are

estranged and alienated, much like Marcovaldo himself. In this way, these cacti can also be

compared to the chapter in Marcovaldo about the rabbit. The poisoned rabbit, thrown into the

throes of the human race, can be seen as Marcovaldo or the working class person being thrown

into modern life.

Kounellis repeats his point in the cacti piece in his Untitled work from 1969, also named

12 Cavalli or 12 Horses. (Figure 2) As the title suggests, Kounellis put twelve horses inside a

gallery. Nature, this time animals, have been placed in a setting where we consider how they are

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used for the needs of humanity. The animals have been taken from nature and have been put into

an unnatural setting.

Pino Pascali, with his work Un metro cubo di terra (One cubic meter of earth) from 1967

(Figure 3), was attempting at this time to invade space. He was trying to bring back ideas of

basic civilization and rural life, as could be seen in the tenth chapter in Marcovaldo, with the

nostalgic views of rustic living. Pascali also captures the crisis in metropolitan Italy during the

late sixties. In presenting a cubic meter of earth, the viewer sees a basic material which was

central to life before modern urbanization but that has become irrelevant. In this way, it is

nostalgic for earlier Italy. (―The Re-Construction of Nature‖) Nature is infringing, in a very

small way, into the modern landscape. It seems as though this small, measured square is the only

space allotted for natural elements to exist within the city. This is also suggestive of the way

land in a city is plotted off into small squares – a form of humans changing the natural

environment unnaturally.

Giovanni Anselmo uses nature to display its potential energy. This is illustrated in his

Untitled 1968 work featuring a head of lettuce in between a slab of granite and a smaller stone.

(Figure 4) The smaller stone has a wire tied to it. Once the vegetable dries out, the tension in

the wire that holds the stone will lessen and the stone will fall. Anselmo, in displaying the

potential energy of nature, shows us how nature can be harnessed to do work for humanity, at the

expense of the natural object. The stone would not be able to move unless the plant died.

So far, I have considered works that involve actual elements from nature. It is also

important to note that Arte Povera deals with artificial materials that are seemingly opposite of

natural elements, such as asbestos pipes or metal poles. Piero Gilardi uses these artificial

materials to create something natural in appearance, for example, in his Pietre di fiume (River

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stones) from 1966. (Figure 5) Created out of polyurethane, this work, like many of his other

―nature carpet‖ works from the time period, features a bed of artificial rocks, sticks and leaves.

This piece has much in common with some of Kounellis‘s art because Gilardi is showing us how

humanity attempts to incorporate nature into modern life, but in doing so causes the natural

object to be divorced from its surroundings. Because the natural object is taken out of context, it

becomes like another object made by man and stuck into modern life. This is another Arte

Povera work that is related to Marcovaldo‘s plant that he ‗rescued‘ from his workplace.

The character Marcovaldo can be likened to an Arte Povera artist because he is ―always

looking for materials around which to organize his ‗natural‘ drives, even if these materials do not

present themselves in abundance, but only in circumscribed or interspersed clusters.‖ (Pinkus 91)

He has ―something of the (self-conscious) Arte Povera researcher in him.‖ (Pinkus 90)

Marcovaldo, in struggling with modernity that is represented by the city, looks towards basic

materials in order to fashion what he needs. In other words, he satisfies his desires through these

mostly natural materials by using the things immediately available to him. Arte Povera artists do

much of the same thing: they reject using materials associated with higher art in favor of handy

materials in order to satisfy their desires. They are able to communicate what they want via

materials readily available. In doing so, their art exists within life and is not a critique of it.

Overall, Arte Povera deals with some of the same issues relating to nature as Marcovaldo

does: how nature is a sort of retreat from urbanization, how nature is being taken over by the

modern city (and, by extension, how people are being oppressed by the unnatural city as well,)

and, finally, they both display the basic human inclination to use nature as material for their own

desires. Arte Povera and Marcovaldo also deal with how humans sometimes see nature as an

escape, even a futile or fantastical escape; in Arte Povera, this is displayed by objects such as the

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nature carpets. Humans attempt to bring nature into their highly modernized lives not for

physical necessity but because it brings an element that satisfies psychological need.

In this time period, Italians had to shift their mode of living. This has been manifested in

Marcovaldo‘s inclination to use nature in order to find food and a way of gaining money. He has

to rapidly shift modes of living; before, he had been in a rural who did live this way, but now he

has been forced into the methods of the city and consumerism. Many Italians went through this

same process, and, although they saw the city as a way to better their lives, they still clung to

nature as a primary source to survive. The newer generations presented through Marcovaldo‘s

children show that in the future, people will become less and less aware of nature and the raw

materials that are used in the products they buy.

In many ways, considering the role of nature and its political implications is the

beginning of a massive political issue that is growing even larger today: that of pollution, urban

sprawl, loss of farmland, and other environmental concerns related to the interaction between the

natural and non-natural worlds. Arte Povera artists were concerned about this even in the late

1960‘s, as illustrated in this passage from Celant in 1969:

―In this ‗poor art‘, life and politics are not apparent or theoretical…

they realize that what is important is not life, work, or action, but

the conditions under which life, work, and action take place… it

tends towards… politics (family, spontaneous action, class struggle,

violence, and environment.‖ (Cullinan 26)

The case of Italy is a prime example of how nature can be related to many areas of human

life, including the social, political, economic, and artistic aspects of society. Both in Marcovaldo

and in Arte Povera, we examine the negative side to what the progress of industrialism promised:

advancement in capital but an infringement on the people and their environment.

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Sources

Calvino, Italo. Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City. Harcourt Brace & Company,

Orlando, Florida, 1983. Translated by William Weaver.

Celant, Germano. ―Arte Povera,‖ Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972; Walker Art

Center, Minneapolis, MN, 2001: 151-153.

Cullinan, Nicholas. "From Vietnam to Fiat -nam: The Politics of Arte

Povera." October Magazine Spring 2008: 8-30.

Ginsborg, Paul. A history of contemporary Italy: Society and Politics 1943-1988.

Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2003: 212-297.

Nocentini, Claudia. ―Chapter 9: ‗Calvino in Turin,‘‖ Italian Cityscapes: Culture and

urban change in contemporary Italy; Edited by Robert Lumley and John Foot, University of

Exeter Press, Exeter, UK, 2004: 129-143.

Pinkus, Karen. ―Italy in the 1960s: Spaces, Places, Trajectories,‖ Zero to Infinity: Arte

Povera 1962-1972; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, 2001: 89-108.

―The Re-Construction of Nature, 1967/1968.‖ Museo Pino Pascali. Online:

http://www.museopinopascali.it/fe/pascali/opere/06_natura/default.php, Translated from Italian.

Ricci, Franco. Painting with words, writing with pictures: word and image in the work

of Italo Calvino; University of Toronto Press Inc, Buffalo, NY, 2001.

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Figure 1. Senza Titulo (Untitled), Janis Kounellis, 1967

Source: http://www.museomadre.it/index.cfm

Figure 2. Senza Titulo or 12 Cavalli (Untitled or 12 Horses), Janis Kounellis, 1969.

Source: http://www.museomadre.it/index.cfm

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Figure 3. Un metro cubo di terra (One cubic meter of earth), Pino Pascali, 1967.

Source: Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972.

Figure 4. Senza titolo (Untitled), Giovanni Anselmo, 1968.

Source: http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk

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Figure 5. Pietre di Fiume (River Stones), Piero Gilardi, 1966.

Source: http://www.palazzograssi.it