The Parasites

Of quite another tenor was the figurative vein that decisively characterised the art schools of central and southern Italy, responding to less programmatic and more instinctive aspirations, and perhaps for this very reason easily exposed to the dangers of anecdote and sketchiness. Without doubt, the continual rediscovery of Hellenistic and Roman works, which came to validate the already flourishing local tradition of the 17th and 18th centuries, had a certain weight in spreading the naturalistic taste that was long to characterise these schools, in both painting and sculpture. Very soon, however, superficial aestheticising pleasantness was no longer enough, and attempts were made to charge reality with meanings of protest, with a programmatic and ostentatious crudeness, as in these two obscenely drunk ancient Romans. So-called Social Realism was born.