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Futurism - a 20th century art movement.
Futurism, Italian Futurismo, Russian Futurism, an early 20th-century artistic movement that centred in
Italy and emphasized the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness
of modern life in general. The most significant results of the movement were in the visual arts and poetry.
Futurism was a largely Italian movement, although it also had adherents in other countries, most notably Russia.
The Futurists explored every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, poetry, theatre, music and
even gastronomy. 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 was first released in Milan and
published in the French paper Le Figaro (February 20). Marinetti summed up the major principles of the
Futurists, including a passionate loathing of ideas from the past, especially political and artistic traditions.
He and others also espoused a love of speed, technology and violence.
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..."
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.
The car, the plane, the industrial town
were all legendary for the Futurists, because they represented the technological triumph of man over nature.
Marinetti's impassioned polemic immediately attracted the support of the young Milanese painters -
Boccioni,
Carrą, and
Russolo
- who wanted to extend Marinetti's ideas to the visual arts (Russolo was also a composer,
and introduced Futurist ideas into his compositions). The painters Balla and Severini met Marinetti in 1910 and
together these artists represented Futurism's first phase.
Futurists dubbed the love of the past "pastism", and its proponents "pastists" (cf. Stuckism).
They would sometimes even physically attack alleged pastists, in other words, those who were
apparently not enjoying Futurist exhibitions or performances.
The Futurists' glorification of modern warfare as the ultimate artistic expression and their intense
nationalism allowed those of them who survived World War I to embrace Italian fascism.
Futurism influenced many other 20th century art movements, including Art Deco,
Vorticism, Constructivism and
Surrealism.
Futurism as a coherent artistic movement is is now regarded as extinct, having died out in the 1920s; many of the
Futurists were killed in two world wars, and Futurism was, like science fiction, in part overtaken by 'the future'.
Nonetheless the ideals of futurism remain as significant components of modern Western culture; the emphasis on youth,
speed, power and technology finding expression in much of modern commercial cinema and culture. Powerful echoes of
Marinetti's thought, especially his "dreamt-of metallization of the human body", also remain in Japanese culture,
and surface
in manga/anime and the film works of artists such as Shinya Tsukamoto, director of Tetsuo.
Futurism has produced several
reactions, including the literary genre of cyberpunk - in which technology was often treated with ambivalence - whilst
artists who came to prominence during the first flush of the internet, such as Stelarc and Mariko Mori, produce work
which comments on futurist ideals.
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