Venturi e Focillon. Un’amicizia intellettuale tra Francia e Stati Uniti

The text reconstructs the human and intellectual relationship that Lionello Venturi and Henri Focillon had between the 1920s and 1940s. Limitedly documented by letters and direct quotations, the exchange with the French scholar is fundamental to rebuild the activity that Lionello carried out in Paris and New York between the 1930s and 1940s, as well as to understand some passages of his thought. The love for the impressionism, the attention for theoretical reflection, the awareness of the historical nature of the research as well as the uniqueness of the artwork, and again, a firm ethic and a solid intellectual freedom constituted the foundations of an exchange which, started in Lyon in 1921, spanned decades and events.