Futurism. Italian avant-garde art movement, launched in 1909, that exalted the dynamism of the modern world; it was literary in origin, but most of its major exponents were painters, and it also embraced sculpture, architecture, music, the cinema, and photography. The First World War brought the movement to an end as a vital force, but it lingered in Italy until the 1930s, and it had a strong influence in other countries, particularly Russia.
The founder of Futurism was the writer Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti, who launched the movement with a manifesto published in French in the Parisian newspaper
Le Figaro on 20 February 1909. In bombastic, inflammatory language, he attacked established values (‘set fire to the library shelves…flood the museums’) and called for the cultural rejuvenation of Italy by means of a new art that would celebrate technology, speed, and all things modern. Although he repeatedly used the word ‘we’ in the manifesto, there was no Futurist group when it was published (the movement was unusual not only in choosing its own name but also in that it started with an idea and only gradually found a way of expressing it in artistic form). However, he soon attracted adherents among other Italians, notably a group of painters based in Milan, whom he helped to produce the
Manifesto of Futurist Painters, published in February 1910. It was drawn up by
Boccioni,
Carrà, and
Russolo, and also signed by
Balla (who lived in Rome) and
Severini (who was in Paris at this time). The same five (the main painters of the movement) signed the
Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting, published in April 1910. Whereas the first painters' manifesto is little more than a repetition of Marinetti's bombast, the
Technical Manifesto does suggest—although in vague terms—the course that Futurist painting would take, with the emphasis on conveying movement (or the experience of movement). In trying to work out a visual idiom to express such concerns, the Futurist painters at first were strongly influenced by
divisionism, in which forms are broken down into small patches of colour—suitable for suggesting sparkling effects of light or the blurring caused by high-speed movement. From 1911, however, some of them—influenced by
Cubism—began using fragmented forms and multiple viewpoints, often accentuating the sense of movement by vigorous diagonals. Their subjects were typically drawn from urban life, and they were often political in intent, but at times their work came close to abstraction.
Boccioni (the only major sculptor in the group) showed a similar concern with movement in his
Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture, published in April 1912. There was also a
Manifesto of Futurist Architecture (1914)—by Antonio Sant'Elia (1888–1916), whose powerful and audacious designs remained on paper—as well as musical manifestos (see
Russolo), and several on other topics, including a
Manifesto of Futurist Lust (1913). Marinetti had a prodigious talent for publicity (backed by substantial inherited wealth) and Futurism was promoted not only through such manifestos, but also by exhibitions, lectures, press conferences, and various attention-seeking stunts, some of which foreshadowed
Performance art.
In keeping with this talent for self-promotion, the Futurists had widespread influence in the period immediately before and during the First World War. Stylistically, the influence is clear in the work of the
Vorticists and
Nevinson in England, for example, and that of Marcel
Duchamp in France and Joseph
Stella in the USA, whilst the use of provocative manifestos and other shock tactics was most eagerly adopted by the
Dadaists. Outside Italy, however, it was in Russia that Futurism made the greatest impact, although there were significant differences between the movements in the two countries: Russian Futurism was expressed as much in literature and the theatre as in the visual arts, and it combined modern ideas with an interest in
primitivism. In terms of Russian painting, Futurism was particularly influential on
Rayonism.
Russian Futurism flourished into the 1920s, but Italian Futurism—as an organized movement—was virtually ended by the First World War (during which Boccioni, its outstanding artist, and also Sant'Elia died; ironically, Marinetti had welcomed the war as a means of cleansing the world). Of the leading painters of the pre-war phase, only Balla remained true to Futurism, and its centre of activity moved from Milan to Rome, where he lived. After the war, Marinetti continued with his literary and political activities, supporting Fascism (he was a friend of Mussolini). Fascism and Futurism shared an aggressive nationalism and the names are often linked; Futurism has even been described as ‘the official art of Fascism’. This, however, is untrue. Although Fascism was ideologically close to Nazism, it was much more tolerant and open in artistic matters; there was no official art of the regime, but in the 1930s the pompous style favoured by some
novecento artists came much closer to this than Futurism ever did.
