Critics Marco Romano and Luca Beatrice: Two Approaches to Art Criticism

The recent deaths of Marco Romano (1934-2025) and Luca Beatrice (1961-2025) have removed two distinct voices from Italian art criticism. Romano, a European thinker, argued that art history is not a sequence of great artists but a complex ramification of aesthetic desires expressed by all individuals through urban spaces. His key works include 'L'estetica della città europea' (1993), 'La piazza Europea', and 'Le belle città'. Beatrice, conversely, focused on labeling contemporary art, continuing the Italian tradition of descriptive criticism exemplified by Lionello Venturi, Giulio Carlo Argan, Roberto Longhi, Federico Zeri, and others. His books include 'Da che arte stai. 10 lezioni sul contemporaneo' and 'Le vite. Un racconto provinciale dell’arte italiana'. The article argues that Italian art criticism has remained a 'subtitle' to art, lacking original social theory, unlike figures such as Alois Riegl, Erwin Panofsky, Walter Benjamin, and Arnold Hauser. It calls for reading both critics' works to foster internationally relevant critical and social thought on art in Italy.