Terms like Futurism and Futurist have got in these days a general meaning that the common use applies equally to architecture, a furniture, to an object. A meta meaning widely used by marketing and by certain cultural environments, with strong identity and a modernity that has permitted it to exceed easily the twentieth century, to collect more and new appreciations, ideas, connections and, most importantly, to demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt itself to new cultural and technological habitas.
But when the term Futurism was born from the great imagination of Marinetti, it had a meaning and a precise content and designated a cultural movement with a well defined program: in contrast to other groups and modern art movements such as Impressionism, Fauvism , Cubism, who had accepted or adopted the definition attributed to them by critics, often less benevolent, Futurism was baptized by itself, and has spread actively and in every way its own ideas. We are thus faced with a movement that anticipates much certain music scenes (industrial, ambient, free jazz) and culture-media (Fluxus), characterized from the outset by a strong awareness by the artists and by a pragmatic program.
The movement had its entertainer in Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), poet and narrator of dual culture, Italian and French and well versed in poetics of the Seventeenth Century, in particular the Simbolism.
When in 1909, Marinetti wrote the first Futurism’s Manifesto, published in Le Figaro on 20 February, the poet has to his credit a number of poems collections in Italian and French and direct the important magazine in Milan “Poesia” carachterized by the imprint of symbolist.
In that Manifesto, Marinetti presents a program violently polemical, with an integral renewal of the dominant culture, based on new principles, consistent with modern life and the industrial society.
The movement had its entertainer in Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944), poet and narrator of dual culture, Italian and French and well versed in poetics of the Seventeenth Century, in particular the Simbolism.
When in 1909, Marinetti wrote the first Futurism’s Manifesto, published in Le Figaro on 20 February, the poet has to his credit a number of poems collections in Italian and French and direct the important magazine in Milan “Poesia” carachterized by the imprint of symbolist.
In that Manifesto, Marinetti presents a program violently polemical, with an integral renewal of the dominant culture, based on new principles, consistent with modern life and the industrial society.
In particular, the art shall enhance the dynamism, speed, energy and human action, in every field, escape the museumfication to be continually renewed in themes and techniques, profoundly affect the society, provoke, shock, use psychological and even physical violence (consider, for example., the vibrant conclusions of Futurist evenings). During the year 1909 Marinetti came into contact with a group of young Italian painters ready to develop and practice in painting the futuristic ideas, they are: Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916), Giacomo Balla (1871-1958), Carlo Carrà (1881-1966), Luigi Russolo (1885-1947) and Gino Severini (1883-1966), who, during 1910, joined the movement and publish the Manifesto of Futurist Painters and the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting. The group begins to organize theater and poetry shows, exhibitions of painting and sculture; the most important, the one that will launch Futurism on the international stage, it opens in 1912 in Paris at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery, under the title Les peintres futuristes italiens; it will be later shown in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, The Hague, Monaco of Bavaria and in America. The painter Severini, who for some years had lived in Paris, helps to establish a connection, intended for those polemical tone, among Parisian Cubists and Futurists; also Guillaume Apollinaire, always attentive to innovations, is interested in them. In the years between 1909 and 1915 Futurism lives a very active and stormy season, punctuated by a series of theoretical positions, or demonstrated, both in literature and in visual arts: in 1912, is published the Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture, in 1914 the Manifesto of Futurist architecture, signed by Antonio Sant ‘Elia (1888-1916), the great architect and urban planner, and in 1915 the Manifesto of Futurist Reconstruction of the universe, signed by Balla and Fortunato Depero (1892-1960), just to mention some of the programmatic writings of the period. Marinetti in 1913 undertook a trip to Moscow, arousing great interest and strengthen the bond with the Russian garde circles.The first world war in which Italy is involved in 1915, doesn’t immediately stops the group’s common activity, but death in war of Boccioni and Saint’Elia will help to hasten development that was already taking shape, with some artists that approach metaphysical experience as Carrà, others will feed into the Novencento, the artistic movement that at the conclusion of the war will start as a return to order, collecting the membership of some staff already active in Futurism, as Sironi and Severini, Rosai, Martini and Morandi, or give life to the so-called second Futurism. But if Futurism folds into new trends or phenomena of lesser importance, such as Aeropittura, its value and its share of revolutionary rejuvenation of Italian culture should not be disregarded and its end as a coherent motion does not mean total abandonment of its objectives, some of which will cause Dadaist experience. What is striking in Italian Futurism is the superabundance of programmatic texts, a phenomenon which has its counterpart only in the Russian avantgarde, from Malevich to Larionov, and the violent, controversial and provocative character of the texts themselves, in which the will of breacking the rules was manifested by bursting agitated and peremptory tone. What are the ideas that animate Futurist texts? First Futurism is a rejection of history, a rejection of “all-what-was-before”, so it is a way of looking at the future, erasing, with the history and traditions of the distant and recent academy, perhaps you could say that Futurism is a dynamic development of Impressionism and especially the Neo-Impressionism.
The first world war in which Italy is involved in 1915, doesn’t immediately stops the group’s common activity, but death in war of Boccioni and Saint’Elia will help to hasten development that was already taking shape, with some artists that approach metaphysical experience as Carrà, others will feed into the Novencento, the artistic movement that at the conclusion of the war will start as a return to order, collecting the membership of some staff already active in Futurism, as Sironi and Severini, Rosai, Martini and Morandi, or give life to the so-called second Futurism. But if Futurism folds into new trends or phenomena of lesser importance, such as Aeropittura, its value and its share of revolutionary rejuvenation of Italian culture should not be disregarded and its end as a coherent motion does not mean total abandonment of its objectives, some of which will cause Dadaist experience. What is striking in Italian Futurism is the superabundance of programmatic texts, a phenomenon which has its counterpart only in the Russian avantgarde, from Malevich to Larionov, and the violent, controversial and provocative character of the texts themselves, in which the will of breacking the rules was manifested by bursting agitated and peremptory tone. What are the ideas that animate Futurist texts? First Futurism is a rejection of history, a rejection of “all-what-was-before”, so it is a way of looking at the future, erasing, with the history and traditions of the distant and recent academy, perhaps you could say that Futurism is a dynamic development of Impressionism and especially the Neo-Impressionism.
NeuGuitars 