Il colore fotografico in Italia. Introduzione

This article offers an introduction to the study of photographic color as a distinctive element of the medium’s language, with a special focus on post-WWII Italy. The first paragraph provides a brief outline of international color photography in the 20th century, a highly dynamic field affected by unsystematic debates and a substantial lack of theoretical studies. The erratic responses to color among Italian photographers, historians, and critics since the 1930s, as well as the general acceptance of color beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, are the subject of the second paragraph. The final section addresses the methodological challenges posed by the study of color for a possible reconsideration of the general history of Italian photography.