Fides Testi's Use of the Airbrush in Italian Art Textiles in the 1930s

The Modernist aesthetic, which spread all over Europe and in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s, found the airbrush decorating technique to be the ideal instrument for expressing the requirements for an extreme synthesis of form. This was considered an essential element of the style, thanks to the areas of uniform color that shaded lighter tones inside basic, often geometric, shapes. The airbrush was used in that period mainly for graphics and for decorating ceramics, but it was also employed in other fields such as textile design. In Italy, the airbrush technique became popular in various artistic sectors including textiles, both for mass production and in the creation of single artistic pieces and in this latter field, Fides Testi was a leading figure.