The Duce in the Street

Abstract

Theatrical Lighting EffectsVarious occurrences of everyday life, especially from the 1920s and 1930s, attest to the attractiveness and fascination of light.Pervasive enthusiasm for theatrical light effects-think of pavilions of electricity at world exhibitions or the works of artists like Man Ray-was promoted by the rapid progress of light technology.It was also this technical progress that was at the roots of photography published in the Rivista Illustrata del 'Popolo d'Italia' in May 1933: "Giuoco di riflettori".Obviously the publishers assumed that the image as such-without captions or any relation to the rest of the journal-would fascinate the reader (see: Figure 1).The title emphasizes the formal interplay of the light beams, but it might be as well showing an anti aircraft floodlight.As a matter of fact, though, "Giuoco di riflettori" by Hans Finsler was taken as a part of a series of pictures at the "Zürcher Lichtwoche" (Zurich light week).The "Zürcher Lichtwoche" took place in October 1932-a few months before the publication of the photography in the Rivista Illustrata del 'Popolo d'Italia'.Hans Finsler had just emigrated from Halle an der Saale in Germany to Switzerland in order to teach photography at the "Zürcher Kunstgewerbeschule" instead of "Burg Giebichenstein".He thoroughly documented the "Zürcher Lichtwoche".The "Zürcher Lichtwoche" was an elaborate and expensive exhibition.Its aim was to show the new possibilities of electrical light for artistic effects in urban development (see: Figure 2).

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