Move or be moved, this is a quip of Ezra Pound that adequately defines the state of modern art in the years 1910-1914. Milton Cohen and his 2004 book Movement, Manifesto, Melee: The Modernist Group are vital to the contemporary conversation on manifestoes. Cohen asserts that this era was deemed “the age of the group” (3) by critics and journalists of the time; artists were either a part of a movement, or simply not a part of the contemporary conversation. Also crucial to the critical conversation of modern manifestoes is the expansive coverage of Christine Poggi’s book, Inventing Futurism: The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism. This work delves into the foundation of Futurism, and thus, describes the most efficient use of the manifesto in modern literary history. Poggi would agree with Cohen when he states “the groups themselves changed the very nature of the art world in this period” because “artists became news in those years” (4). Further into the involvement of the multiple groups of the era, Charles Ferrall’s 1993 article, “‘Melodramas of Modernity’: The Interaction of Vorticism and Futurism before the Great War” details the interaction between two very important issuers of manifestoes. His research is important in that in clarifies the relationship Vorticism and Futurism and permits one to grasp how intertwined manifestoes were before World War I. While the modern artists are such striking individual talents, the group dynamic of the era allowed for artists to have a comfort crowd, a sounding board, and an overall more impactful voice. It is true that the public profile of artistic groups such as the Futurists, the Vorticists, and the Surrealists served as an area for artists to exist and to cultivate an audience. Manifestoes served as the public declaration of a group’s policies, aesthetics, and aims. Although artists grouping together to share ideas and presenting their art together was nothing new, the belligerence of manifestoes, the powerful voice of these groups, propelled visions of art to the forefront of society.

 

Art had reached a status where different schools of thought were fighting over how to best represent the world. There was a clear link between what an artist was attempting and its relationship with the world, it was a group’s manifesto. Through newspapers, manifestoes, and advertisement, art was being labeled and discussed and there was finally an interaction between artist and audience. There was one thing that “like the Futurists, the Vorticists" believed strongly that "the art of their immediate predecessors as decadent, feminine, and pacifist” (Ferrall 349).  The groups were in agreement that war and agression equalled progress and that art had to mirror that feeling.  However, Cohen asserts that “the real combat of 1914—a destruction more massive, more unrelenting, and ultimately more nihilistic than any these artists could have imagined” (2) killed the manifesto. Even though manifestoes and battling camps of aesthetics did not maintain as great of a public status after the First World War, it is still important to understand their advertising tactics and to realize how connected and public these groups of modern poets made the world of art.  

 

The Futurists, led by Filippo Marinetti, were the first group to fully utilize the manifesto as a way to further their artwork. Marinetti respected military tactics and treated the art scene as a battle field; he knew that bad press was better than no press and through the use of radical manifestoes he was able to glorify the artwork of his group. Cohen stresses that “Marinetti’s genius was to harness the techniques of modern advertising and publicity to the avant-garde, to guarantee that a sensation within the gallery would become a public controversy outside it” (16). The major success of Marinetti’s publicity attacks that truly elevated his art group was the intersecting audiences attracted to the events: artists, journalists, and the avant-garde connoisseurs. By means of wild marketing and eye-catching art shows, The Futurists succeeded in gaining transnational popularity of their group; the manifestoes and creative publicity helped Marinetti restyle the modern art scene. The Futurists were marketing masterminds; as well as their manifestoes being printed in Italian and French newspapers, Poggi reveals that “the manifesto appeared in English, Spanish, and German” (5). Marinetti’s publicity efforts were characterized by the mass diffusion of his manifestoes. The truth is that marketing was important in reshaping the arts and most vital to that endeavor was the manifesto.

 

The accomplishments of The Futurists pushed Ezra Pound to copy their model for success. Ezra Pound “organized [a few young poets] into a new group with an exotic name (Les Imagistes), a somewhat mysterious aesthetic credo (“the doctrine of the image”), and a leader—himself” (Cohen 21). This is how many movements started, by adopting the style of The Futurists, denouncing the aesthetics of another group, and then to present the groups particular aesthetic. Still, as Pound created the Vorticist manifesto and others their respective manifestoes, it was the battle between varying ideals, Cohen contends that “made the art world nosier, more tumultuous” (55). Ferrall adds to the conversation by stating that “there is more to the interaction of Futurism and Vorticism than simply the rivalry of two groups of art advertisers” (Ferrall 348).  Frankly, the clamor and clatter of modernist groups’ and their manifestoes allowed for artists to have attention focused on their work, but there was always more to the groups.

 

The commotion of the modern manifestoes was primarily the connection of content and contemporary life; Marinetti and The Futurists understood this well. Poggi points out the strong stance that Marinetti held: “a truly renovated Italy could only be born out of the ashes of a destroyed past” (1) and it was this stance that allowed for the aesthetics of his group to grow and eventually echo the political turmoil of Marinetti’s Italy. While the manifesto acted as a labeling of a group aesthetic and let artists have a backing for their work, The true reason, however, that Marinetti’s ideas were able to disseminate so forcefully was the fact that there was political unrest and “he refused to recognize established social hierarchies, especially the power of the governing bourgeoisie in Italy, and sought instead to affirm the liberty of the people” (Poggi 13). In an attempt to create a mode of art to accurately depict the contemporary world, Marinetti stumbled upon a political powerhouse that was able to connect the masses with art in an attempt to change both the state of their nation and the world of art.  The access to a country that is politically revolting allowed for the catalyst of an art movement; the association with a political message presented manifestoes that stood for more than art, they stood for a people.

 

In times of political strife charismatic leaders strike in order to captivate a people. Along with the political revolutions, the spark in creative energy of the period was the driving force behind the massive numbers of manifestoes that cropped up from 1910-1914. Writers and painters were combating each other’s artistic movements through writings that primarily acted as documents that separated the ideals of differing groups. Authors of the time used manifestoes’ “metamorphic vitality” to reach a wide audience and the manifestoes were used to “declare a group’s position; ‘to convince the reader of a thesis;’ to effect a ‘conversation,’ and sometimes to be ‘a call to arms’” (107). Many diverse manifestoes cropped up over those years, but many were superficially similar in the fact that they only went so far as to make broad negations of other aesthetics and to make powered claims of personal aesthetics directly to the reader.

 

Cohen makes it clear that as wild as the groups had been, many were similar: “The closer a group seemed to a rival, the more vehemently it needed to declare itself distinctive and its rival misguided” (109). This is how three such radically different groups could spawn during the time. One key component in the radical differences between groups was the political nature of their manifestoes; Poggi states “Futurist visual works frequently employed verbal elements, interpolating fragments of manifestoes, newspaper clippings, and slogans into their compositions as a means of making their political message more explicit and multisensory” (63). The Futurists, the Vorticists, and the Surrealists all created manifestoes to exist in the center of the avant-grade styles, to claim themselves the true aesthetic geniuses, and to be politically assertive; however, the idea, which all attained, was to grab the reader with political force and to attain any publicity possible in order to propel ones specific group. While few manifestoes are as politically charged as The Futurists, by being less political other groups would gain separation and allow art to offer an escape from the impending doom. On the verge of world war, these intellectuals crafted political manifestoes, whether engaging or avoiding, and scuffled in and out of the artistic and literary limelight.

 

The battles of these art groups, the declaration of differences form Futurists and Vorticists, mirrored the destructive quality of the manifestoes themselves. Marinetti loved the modern military mindset, and the hostility of the manifesto is “intrinsic to the name and nature of the genre” (Cohen 134). The battling between groups created a prewar tension in the art world almost as strong as the global tensions, but instead these were publicity stunts and there were not really lives at stake. The destructive force of World War I had the power “to silence their art battles, to collapse that world utterly” (Cohen 2). Once the true aggression of world war was upon the modernists, the fights began to slow, and today the state of the manifesto is weak as art grew to be more universal, friendly, and accepting. Art moved away from the destructive and the violent as the world around them was rebuilding after the war.

 

If two World Wars were not enough to kill the manifesto, in 2009, contemporary poets Joshua Clover and Juliana Spahr affirmed that “the manifesto is dead” (1). Now the manifesto is even farther removed from the poetic world and what once reigned as the calling card for artistic movements is scare visible but for literary journals. The authors go on to redefine manifestoes, stating the writings need to “stop wringing its hands over poetry's lost popularity,” and “the manifesto is obligated to say There are other countries where poetry still matters!” (1). In an attempt to revive the manifesto these two poets succeed in relaying the notion that areas surviving on the hope and force of poetry still exist; however, the failure comes in the lack of passion and knowledge of publicity. There is no fuss about poetry. Marinetti would have made a commotion, a provoking art show, or some crazy news stunt, or tweeting a confrontational manifesto, regardless, the attention of the public must be focused on a manifesto for it to have any affect. The manifesto is not dead—the manifesto done right is in the grave with Marinetti.

 

Most literary journals boast some motto or credo, but few have fervor of the modernist poets. At the moment manifestos are scrawny compared to the attention grabbers of the past. Manifestoes must take on more radical forms as the technology has drastically changed from 1914. The ultimate truth is that manifestoes did not make the art of the times better but it did make art the focus of the era. There was deep thought by artists that integrated into public thought by way of the manifesto. Ferrall argues that “the war which the Futurists and the Vorticists declare on the rest of society becomes an end in itself rather than a means towards some end” (364) and this may be true; however, the manifesto allowed art movements to happen and without the manifesto à la Marinetti there would be no modern era of art. Today the changes and attempts to alter the art world are not as powerfully written and forced into the public sphere. There must be a renewal in energy, artists must stay up all night and drive fast cars and make the general public realize that art is necessary to understand the world we live in.