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FUTURISM was one of the longest lived and broadest encompassing artistic
movements of the 20th century, although it tends to be denied the importance
it deserves because of its political associations.
Many of the early Futurists were anarchists, the movement was welcomed
by Gramsci and emulated amongst the Bolsheviks, but it was the association
of Futurismo with Fascismo that has left it somewhat tainted
amongst progressives. This is ironic in that Futurism was the quintessenence
of 20th century modernism and paralleled 'the cult of the new' exemplified
in Lenin's dictum "socialism + electricity = communism". Although
Mussolini's regime utilised modernist traits, it was more at home with
the neo-classicism of Novecento.
Although mainly associated with the visual arts, Futurism began in 1909
with the proclamation of a manifesto by the Italian poet, Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti (1876-1944). The manifesto not only celebrated the dynamism
of the machine age but strongly negated the past: "We will destroy
the museums, libraries, academies of every kind..."
The course of Futurism was to be characterised by the issuing of manifestos,
and, indeed, it has been suggested that the ideas were better than the
art. Marinetti's founding manifesto was followed in 1910 by two manifestos
on painting signed by Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Luigi
Russolo, Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini. They were
not at that time actually working in the style that was to become Futurism,
but they spoke of rendering "dynamic sensation".
Further manifestos came thick and fast. Futurist sculpture was outlined
by Boccioni in 1912, while in 1914 architecture was addressed by Antonio
Sant'Elia whose designs presaged the soaring buildings of the later
20th century.
Stylistically four phases of Futurist art may be discerned: the first
stage, heavily influenced by Cubism (Boccioni's 'lines of force'); from
1916, geometric abstracts (Balla); the machine art of the 20s (cf. Russian
Constructivism); and the Aeropittura ('aero-painting') of the 1930s.
Besides the visual arts, Futurism was also to manifest itself in literature,
the theatre and music, with proclamations eventually reaching clothes
fashions, food and drink, and even toys. Luigi Russolo's The Art of
Noises 1913 advocated imitating the sounds of modern life. This was
to be done through the use of 'Noise Intoners' which imitated industrial
sounds and belonged to instrumental families such as exploders, cracklers,
buzzers and scrapers.
The hard geometric lines characteristic of Futurism were shared with
other contemporary schools, especially Cubism, while all these movements
both reflected and influenced 'Art Moderne' (or the 'Jazz Style') now
referred to by the 60s coining of 'Art Deco'. The ideology of 20th century
geometric art was addressed by T E Hulme.
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FUTURISM was one of the longest lived and broadest encompassing artistic
movements of the 20th century, although it tends to be denied the importance
it deserves because of its political associations.
