4.5 Futurism

Futurism

The futurist movement was launched in Italy in 1909 under the leadership of the charismatic poet F.T. Marinetti. Concerned that Italy was lagging behind the industrial advances of countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, the Futurists wanted to “fast forward” their nation into the forefront of modernization, by breaking all ties to the past. For this reason, the Futurists advocated the destruction of all ties to the past (including libraries and museums):

Futurism as a Political Movement

The Futurists aggressively campaigned for a revolution in art and society, and they publicized their ideas in “manifestos” (imitating political manifestos) that were widely circulated in the press:

They also famously embraced war and revolution as a means of social cleansing:

The Futurist movement was not limited to art: there were Futurist Manifestos issued for Music, Architecture, Photography, Cinema, and Fashion! The one thing they had in common was a radical break with the past, and an equally radical rejection of accepted cultural values.

The Futurists pioneered modern music through the invention of music “machines,” and the concept of music as “noise.” Luigi Russolo proposed a new form of “music” based on the sound of machines and industry. In his manifesto, The Art of Noises (1913), he wrote:

The industrial revolution had created an entirely new form of sound, and Russolo proposed to harness this sound as the basis for a new form of music:

Futurist music has been compared to Heavy Metal and Punk. Like these musical styles, the Futurists rejected traditional notions of “beauty” and embraced the raw sounds of the modern industrial environment.

Listen to recording of Rusollo’s noise music at Ubuweb.

The Futurists also inspired a revolution in poetry and typography.  Marinetti’s “words in liberty” sought to free words from conventional syntax, grammar, and meaning.   In his poems and typographic designs words became “sounds” and “visual forms” rather than signifiers of meaning.

The Futurists pioneered “performance” as an art form, and their public appearances (what they called “serata”) were rarely polite affairs. They typically involved recitations of noise poems, and performances of noise music, along with declamations from manifestos, and irreverent acts such as burning the Austrian flag. The goal was to incite the audience to riot, and Marinetti judged his performance to be a success only if a fight broke out. Violence and mayhem were welcome remedies to what the futurists regarded as bourgeois complacency.

Futurist art embraced the themes of movement, dynamism, and speed:

In this work Giacomo Balla creates the sensation of motion through repeated forms:

Balla was influenced by contemporary photographers who used stop-action cameras to capture motion. Anticipating the invention of the moving image (film) photographers like Edward Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey used multiple cameras fitted with a fast acting shutter. The resulting photographs are like the individual frames of a moving image. Balla endeavoured to create the same effect of motion by multiplying the limbs of his figures.

Cubism also helped Futurists represent motion, speed, and simultaneity. In this work, Boccioni uses Cubist fragmentation to evoke the dynamism and energy of a speeding locomotive:

This painting by Luigi Russolo depicts a speeding automobile (a favourite subject of the Futurists). He creates the sensation of movement by fragmenting the object and the atmosphere around it into waves that resemble the scientific principal know as the Doppler Effect. This short video will explain it:

The defining work of the Futurist movement was Umberto Boccioni’s Unique forms of Continuity in space. It was an update on a famous sculpture of a striding man by Auguste Rodin. As the figure strides forward, the forms of his body unfold, creating a rushing surge of motion forward:

Italian Futurism: An Introduction

Can you imagine being so enthusiastic about technology that you name your daughter Propeller? Today we take most technological advances for granted, but at the turn of the last century, innovations like electricity, x-rays, radio waves, automobiles and airplanes were extremely exciting. Italy lagged Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the pace of its industrial development. Culturally speaking, the country’s artistic reputation was grounded in Ancient, Renaissance and Baroque art and culture. Simply put, Italy represented the past.

In the early 1900s, a group of young and rebellious Italian writers and artists emerged determined to celebrate industrialization. They were frustrated by Italy’s declining status and believed that the “Machine Age” would result in an entirely new world order and even a renewed consciousness.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the ringleader of this group, called the movement Futurism. Its members sought to capture the idea of modernity, the sensations and aesthetics of speed, movement, and industrial development.

A manifesto

Marinetti launched Futurism in 1909 with the publication his “Futurist manifesto” on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro. The manifesto set a fiery tone. In it Marinetti lashed out against cultural tradition (passatismo, in Italian) and called for the destruction of museums, libraries, and feminism. Futurism quickly grew into an international movement and its participants issued additional manifestos for nearly every type of art: painting, sculpture, architecture, music, photography, cinema—even clothing.

The Futurist painters—Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini, and Giacomo Balla—signed their first manifesto in 1910 (the last named his daughter Elica—Propeller!). Futurist painting had first looked to the color and the optical experiments of the late 19th century, but in the fall of 1911, Marinetti and the Futurist painters visited the Salon d’Automne in Paris and saw Cubism in person for the first time. Cubism had an immediate impact that can be seen in Boccioni’s Materia of 1912 for example. Nevertheless, the Futurists declared their work to be completely original.

Dynamism of Bodies in Motion

The Futurists were particularly excited by the works of late 19th-century scientist and photographer Étienne-Jules Marey, whose chronophotographic (time-based) studies depicted the mechanics of animal and human movement.

A precursor to cinema, Marey’s innovative experiments with time-lapse photography were especially influential for Balla. In his painting Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, the artist playfully renders the dog’s (and dog walker’s) feet as continuous movements through space over time.

Entranced by the idea of the “dynamic,” the Futurists sought to represent an object’s sensations, rhythms and movements in their images, poems and manifestos. Such characteristics are beautifully expressed in Boccioni’s most iconic masterpiece, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (see above).

The choice of shiny bronze lends a mechanized quality to Boccioni’s sculpture, so here is the Futurists’ ideal combination of human and machine. The figure’s pose is at once graceful and forceful, and despite their adamant rejection of classical arts, it is also very similar to the Nike of Samothrace.

Politics & War

Futurism was one of the most politicized art movements of the twentieth century. It merged artistic and political agendas in order to propel change in Italy and across Europe. The Futurists would hold what they called serate futuriste, or Futurist evenings, where they would recite poems and display art, while also shouting politically charged rhetoric at the audience in the hope of inciting riot. They believed that agitation and destruction would end the status quo and allow for the regeneration of a stronger, energized Italy.

These positions led the Futurists to support the coming war, and like most of the group’s members, leading painter Boccioni enlisted in the army during World War I. He was trampled to death after falling from a horse during training. After the war, the members’ intense nationalism led to an alliance with Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party. Although Futurism continued to develop new areas of focus (aeropittura, for example) and attracted new members—the so-called “second generation” of Futurist artists—the movement’s strong ties to Fascism has complicated the study of this historically significant art.

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