Futurism

The Futurist Movement was started by Italian Poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the king of the manifesto. His poetry will not stand the test of time, however, "The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism" will. That document he forged took a hard stance against the past and reveled in speed, machinery, and violence. The Futurists saw the rising tensions of WW I as a way to build a new Italy from the ashes of destruction. “The 'Futurist moment' was the brief utopian phase of early modernism when artists felt themselves to be on the verge of a new age that would be more exciting, more promising, more inspiring than any preceding one” (Perloff 36). There was a feeling that what they were writing mattered; they created movements of art, a tentative act of today. Their first manifesto starts not with a declaration, but instead launches into an active scene and the language of the manifesto leaves almost no room for thoughts. The manifesto reader is simply told the state of art in the modern world and movements were clearly defined and isolating. The Futurists were pioneers in manipulating the masses through aggressive manifestoes and alternative publicity, and without this group the revolution in experimental artistic movements of the Modern period would not exist.

Important figures of the movement include F. T. Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini, Bruno Corradini, Giacomo Balla, and Emilio Settimelli. Marinetti and the other Futruists had the ability to churn out many powerful manifestoes over the years. While the focus of this movement was primarily on painting, what remains is their commitment to a movement to reconceptualize art.

As Umberto Boccioni puts it, Futurist artists sought after “the simultaneousness of states of mind in the work of art,” meaning “the synthesis of what one remembers and of what sees” (Perloff 7).

Giacoma Balla, Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash. 1912. Oil on canvas Albright-Knox, Buffalo

Gino Severini, Le Nord-Sud. 1913. Oil on canvas. Pinacoteca di Brera, Italy.

The video is an acting out of The Futurist's founding manifesto. Although I do not think that Marinetti would necessarily approve of the entire video, he would have to agree that it is reminiscent of the Futurist tradition, in that it blend mediums and has quick cuts, emphasizing violent speed and agressive force.

"Les mots en liberté futuristes" by F. T. Marinetti, 1919.

Above is a poem by Marinetti whose translated title is "Futurist Words in Freedom" and it relays how experimental Futurists were. Marinetti was a better manifesto writer than a poet, and an interesting reader, as well.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti posing in front of art