Futurism

Developing in Italy during the early twentieth century, futurism was an artistic movement that embraced the arrival of the modern age. It celebrated industrialization, urbanization, and technology and showed thematic preoccupations with ideas such as speed, motion, mechanization, youth, and change. Although futurists were interested in the potential of new technologies including photography and filmmaking, most of the group's enduring works took traditional forms, such as painting and sculpture.

Futurism was noteworthy for its highly politicized philosophy, and it was one of the twentieth century's most ideologically charged artistic movements. Its adherents were committed to toppling the status quo, both in art and in society at large. This ultimately led many futurists to adopt controversial political beliefs, including strong support for World War I (1914–1918) and a fervent brand of Italian nationalism that came to favor the country's National Fascist Party and its leader, Benito Mussolini (1883–1945).

Background

At the turn of the twentieth century, Italy was struggling to find its way forward. The country had just completed a unification process in 1871, which many had hoped would usher in a new era of prosperity. However, Italy continued to struggle economically, leading to significant emigration, widespread poverty, and low levels of respect for its weak central government. In 1900, the Italian king Umberto I (1844–1900) was assassinated, and the country plunged into deep political uncertainty.

From a developmental standpoint, Italy was also failing to keep pace with its peers, and its cultural reputation was steeped in the past glories of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. In many ways, the Italy of the early twentieth century represented a bygone era. This is precisely what the futurist movement hoped to change.

New technologies, symbolized by the rise of the so-called "machine age," had changed the social and economic landscape of leading nations including Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Believing that machines and technology held the potential to return Italy to its previous status among Europe's leading economic and cultural forces, a new generation of young artists and writers eagerly embraced modernity in all its forms. In 1909, this emerging artistic style was given its name when its leader and originator, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944), published "Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" in Le Figaro, a French newspaper and one of Europe's most respected periodicals.

Marinetti's manifesto included a series of eleven articles, which defined the beliefs and objectives of the futurist movement. Beyond their philosophical and aesthetic implications, the articles of the manifesto also signaled futurism's alignment with unconventional political ideas. Futurism committed itself not just to rejecting the past but to actually destroying it. Its adherents sought to inspire unprecedented social, political, and economic upheaval in addition to changing the face of art, literature, and culture.

Although it began as an avant-garde literary movement, futurism quickly expanded to include other art forms. The movement's best-known and most enduring works were created in visual media, including painting and sculpture. While futurism also spread to other countries, including France and Russia, it is most closely associated with Italy and Marinetti's leadership. Art historians usually date futurism from the 1909 publication of its original manifesto to Marinetti's death in 1944.

Overview

Building on Marinetti's ideas, a collective of five artists published the "Manifesto of the Futurist Painters" in 1910. The group included Umberto Boccioni (1882–1916), Carlo Carrà (1881–1966), Luigi Russolo (1885–1947), Giacomo Balla (1871–1958), and Gino Severini (1883–1966). The first major futurist exhibition was held in Milan in 1911 and featured Boccioni's seminal 1910 painting The City Rises, which is still considered one of the movement's most important and defining works. Futurism initially adopted a varied range of avant-garde elements inspired by post-impressionism, divisionism, and pointillism. However, its aesthetic soon came to include elements of cubism, a style characterized by disjointed representations of three-dimensional form that was developed by Georges Braque (1882–1963) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). As it matured, futurism developed a distinct visual language defined by fractured space, mechanical forms, overhead perspectives, and representations of speed and motion expressed through subjects including automobiles, airplanes, and modern cityscapes. Youth was another key theme of the movement and consistently recurred as a popular subject of futurist art.

The futurist aesthetic was also expressed through sculpture and, to a lesser extent, architecture. Boccioni's 1913 sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space explored the relationship between objects and the environments in which they exist and was considered a major step forward for the emerging style. Architecturally, futurists sought to imbue urban spaces and buildings with machine-like appearances and functions, an objective captured by Antonio Sant'Elia (1888–1916) in his ambitious but ultimately unrealized plans for La Città Nuova, or The New City. In addition to influencing the poetry, drama, literature, and performing arts of early twentieth-century Italy, the futurist style also made its way into advertising and the graphic arts.

Futurism is noteworthy for the commitment of its adherents to its controversial ideology. Giacomo Balla famously named his daughters Elica (Propellor) and Luce (Light), and many futurists were eager to celebrate violence and the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918), believing it would bring about the new social and political order they sought to implement. Boccioni died in 1916 after enlisting in the Italian armed forces, and Sant'Elia was killed that same year while fighting for Italy in the Eighth Battle of the Isonzo. Although the movement divided into numerous splinter groups with varying ideologies during the mid-1910s, futurism also notoriously embraced far-right fascist politics after World War I, with many of its members supporting the rise and reign of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

While its political associations have served to complicate futurism's artistic legacy, art historians share a consensus that it was one of the most significant and influential movements of the early twentieth century. Its organized ideology had a profound impact on the Dada movement, an abstract art style that ridiculed notions of coherence and meaning. Futurism also informed the stylistic development of surrealism, constructivism, and Art Deco, among others. Its goal of collapsing the barriers between "high culture" and "low culture" also found new outlets with the rise of postmodernism in the latter half of the twentieth century.

Bibliography

Adamson, Walter, et al. Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe. Guggenheim Museum, 2014.

Bowler, Anne. "Politics as Art: Italian Futurism and Fascism." Theory and Society, vol. 20, no. 6, Dec. 1991, pp. 763–794.

"Futurism." The Art Story: Modern Art Insight, www.theartstory.org/movement-futurism.htm. Accessed 19 Nov. 2016.

Ialongo, Ernest. Filippo Tommaso Marinett: The Artist and His Politics. Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.

"Italian Futurism: An Introduction." Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/wwi-dada/art-great-war/a/italian-futurism-an-introduction. Accessed 19 Nov. 2016.

"Italian Futurism: Boisterous, Right-Wing and Prescient." The Economist, 4 Mar. 2014, www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/03/italian-futurism. Accessed 19 Nov. 2016.

Palmieri, Jessica. "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism." Italian Futurism, 2014, www.italianfuturism.org/manifestos/foundingmanifesto/. Accessed 19 Nov. 2016.

Poggi, Christine. Inventing Futurism: The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism. Princeton University Press, 2009.