Futurism (art movement)

Futurism is an artistic movement that first developed in Italy during the early twentieth century. It was founded by writer and poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who published his “Manifeste del Futurismo” in February 1909. The manifesto advocated for the abandonment of the art traditions and practices of previous generations, allowing for full artistic freedom and giving humanity the ability to forge new paths without restrictions. Marinetti inspired a group of young painters from Milan, who began creating art in a way that they felt expressed the true themes of the twentieth century. Much of this art involved depicting speed, motion, and violence in visual media. Some Futurists also created poetry, literature, and plays.

The Futurist movement slowed during World War I, when many Italian futurists were recruited to fight in the war. Two of the most famous Futurist artists were killed during the fighting, architect Antonio Sant’Elia and painter Umberto Boccioni. Though this destroyed the original generation of Futurists, Marinetti revived the movement in Italy, creating a second wave of Futurist art. However, this wave was heavily tied to Italy’s Fascist government. Following the end of World War II, this wave of Futurism was also considered extinct. Despite its short lifespan, Futurism is considered an important contributor to numerous other artistic movements, including Art Deco and Surrealism.

Background

Futurism can trace its origins back to twentieth-century poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who was born on December 22, 1976, in Alexandria, Egypt, and spent much of his youth traveling between European nations. He quickly developed his skills as a writer while working for an Italian and French magazine in Milan, Italy and became fluent in both languages. Though he lived in France, Marinetti commonly traveled to Italy for work.

Marinetti published several books of poetry early in his career, including Destruction (1904) and La Ville Charnelle (1908). However, these collections failed to earn the artist significant attention. In 1909, while Marinetti was traveling on his bicycle, a car forced him to swerve off the road and into a ditch. Marinetti was inspired by the moment, particularly that the modern automobile had so easily forced the bicycle out of the way. He wrote “Manifeste del Futurismo” and published the work in February 1909 in both the Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dell'Emilia and the French newspaper Le Figaro. This work praised the inevitability of the new overtaking the old.

Rather than criticize the automobile for running him off the road, Marinetti praised the invention’s speed and power. He used his manifesto to outline Futurism as an artistic movement, arguing for an intentional rejection of the past in favor of paying greater attention to artistic beauty in the future. On a societal scale, Marinetti pushed for the complete destruction of traditional values in favor of new institutions that would better serve humanity in the future. According to Marinetti, such sentimental ties to the past only served to hold back humanity’s advancement, and society should rejoice as it discards ideas that no longer serve it.

Overview

Though Marinetti’s manifesto angered some critics and members of the public, it also won over many young artists. A group of painters in Milan were inspired by Marinetti’s ideas and resolved to use their art to further develop Futurism as a movement. These painters used their work to praise innovation and originality instead of conforming to traditional artistic models. These painters included Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Luigi Russolo, and Gino Severini.

Many of these painters used Cubism in combination with Futurism. Cubism uses visual art to show several simultaneous views of an object utilizing intersecting planes and defined outlines. It creates a unique visual effect that was popularized by revolutionary painter Pablo Picasso. Early Futurist artists worked to create visual representations of their subject’s movement. For this reason, these painters often included multiple outlines of a single object, creating stylized blurs that represented motion. This distinguished Futurist artists from Cubists artists, who commonly portrayed still objects and people. Additionally, Futurist paintings used more vibrant colors than their Cubist counterparts.

The Futurist painters quickly popularized the art style, gaining followers throughout Italy. Some of the most famous works include Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) by Balla and Riot in the Gallery (1910) by Boccioni. Following their success, Futurist artists quickly began experimenting with other artistic mediums. Boccioni created the famous Futurist sculptures Development of a Bottle in Space (1912) and Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913). These sculptures featured flowing lines, distorted figures, and smooth features to depict motion. Both Boccioni and Antonio Sant’Elia published personal manifestos on Futurist sculpting.

Some Futurist artists sought to establish Futurism as a literary genre. Artistic writing had been part of the Futurism movement from its inception. However, these writings primarily took the form of manifestos intended to establish the core beliefs of Futurism and guide newer Futurist artists in their contributions to the genre. However, Futurist literature applied the core tenets of Futurism to written works. Like most Futurism, this genre was primarily practiced in Italy during the early twentieth century, where it was inspired by Marinetti’s manifesto. Marinetti himself contributed to this genre, using his writing to encourage other artists to create Futurist works.

Futurist writers felt that traditional literary genres were not able to accurately convey the hallmarks of the early twentieth century. They were most concerned with expressing speed, violence, and motion in written form. For this reason, they developed their own literary genres, each serving its own unique purpose.

Futurists developed free-word poetry, which they called parole in liberta or “words-in-freedom.” Prior to the development of free-word poetry, most poetry intentionally worked within a set of literary constraints, such as meter, rhyme, and grammatical conventions. Futurist free-word poetry placed no restrictions of any kind upon the poet. They were free to alter spelling, sentence structure, rhyme, and even the physical placement of the words on the page. This gave Futurist writers an immense amount of artistic freedom at the cost of making their work more difficult for many readers to interpret. Futurist writers would sometimes string many words together without following any rules of sentence structure, working to create a feeling or association instead of a narrative purpose. Notably, many Futurist free-word poems lacked adjectives and adverbs, instead utilizing specialized pairings and mathematical signs to impart their meaning to readers. One of the most famous Futurist free-word poems was “Battaglia peso + odore” (“Battle weight + smell”) (1912) by Marinetti.

Some Futurist writers combined free-word poetry with graphical elements. Called dipinti paroliberi, these works were constructed as collages paired with free-word poems. The artists were expected to abandon all prior artistic traditions, developing their own methods of communicating with their audience. Some Futurists also wrote short plays that were shown to audiences during multi-media presentations.

Futurism continued as an active genre throughout the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918). However, two of the movement’s most talented artists, Boccioni and Sant’Elia, were killed in action in 1916. The sudden deaths of two of the movement’s leaders, as well as the political and military upheaval throughout Europe, reduced the amount of Futurist art created by the members of the movement. Many of the other Italian Futurists served in the war, further limiting their artistic production. Though a few prominent pieces of wartime Futurist art were created, such as Red Cross Train (1915) by Severini, the original Italian Futurist movement ended with World War I.

After his return from the war, Marinetti worked to revive Futurism. Though his work continued, and some additional contributions to the genre were made, none reached the levels of success associated with the original movement. Many later Italian Futurists were nationalists, unhappy with the nation’s place in Europe and hoping that Fascism would help return Italy to prominence. Marinetti himself became closely tied with the nation’s Fascist government. After this, European Futurism later became associated with Fascist political ideology. This association greatly harmed Futurism after the end of World War II, and the movement officially became extinct in 1944.

Despite this short life, the Futurist movement had a strong impact on many later artistic genres. Constructivism, Art Deco, Surrealism, Dada, and Neo-Futurism can all trace their roots to the Italian Futurist movement. Many forms of Neo-Futurist art are still produced in the modern era. The most significant form of Neo-Futurism is Neo-Futurist theater, which is practiced across North America.

Bibliography

“A Brief Guide to Futurism Art Movement.” WideWalls, 2015, www.widewalls.ch/magazine/futurism-art. Accessed 26 July 2023.

“Art Movement: Futurism—Celebration of Movement.” Artland, 2023, magazine.artland.com/art-movement-futurism/. Accessed 26 July 2023.

“Filipo Tommaso Marinetti.” MoMA, 2023, www.moma.org/artists/3771. Accessed 26 July 2023.

“Futurism.” Tate, 2023, www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/futurism. Accessed 26 July 2023.

“What Is Futurism—Art Movement Definition, Examples, & Artists.” Studio Binder, 2023, www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-futurism-definition/. Accessed 26 July 2023.