My brief summary of Futurism: Futurism was an
artistic and
social movement that originated in
Italy
in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes
associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed,
technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the
airplane and the industrial city. It was largely an
Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in
Russia,
England and elsewhere. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including
painting,
sculpture,
ceramics,
graphic design,
industrial design,
interior design,
theatre,
film,
fashion,
textiles,
literature,
music,
architecture and even
gastronomy. Futurism influenced art movements such as
Art Deco,
Constructivism,
Surrealism,
Dada, and to a greater degree,
Rayonism and
Vorticism.
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.
IAN CHILVERS.
"Futurism."
The Oxford Dictionary of Art.
2004. Retrieved
June 06, 2012
from Encyclopedia.com:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O2-Futurism.html
Giacomo Balla
Giacomo Balla: (July 18, 1871 – March 1, 1958) was an Italian painter. Born in
Turin, in the
Piedmont region of
Italy, the son of an industrial chemist, as a child Giacomo Balla studied music.
At 9, when his father died, he gave up music and began working in a
lithograph print shop. By age twenty his interest in art was such that
he decided to study painting at local academies and exhibited several of
his early works. Following academic studies at the
University of Turin, Balla moved to
Rome
in 1895 where he met and married Elisa Marcucci. For several years he
worked in Rome as an illustrator and caricaturist as well as doing
portraiture. In 1899 his work was shown at the
Venice Biennale and in the ensuing years his art was on display at major Italian exhibitions in Rome and Venice, in
Munich,
Berlin and
Düsseldorf in
Germany as well as at the
Salon d'Automne in
Paris and at galleries in
Rotterdam in the
Netherlands.
Influenced by
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Giacomo Balla adopted the
Futurism style, creating a pictorial depiction of light, movement and speed. He was signatory to the
Futurist Manifesto
in 1910 and began designing and painting Futurist furniture and also
created Futurist "antineutral" clothing. He also taught Umberto
Boccioni. In painting, his new style is demonstrated in the 1912 work
titled
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash. Seen here, is his 1914 work titled
Abstract Speed + Sound
(Velocità astratta + rumore). In 1914, he also began sculpting and the
following year created perhaps his best known sculpture called
Boccioni's Fist.
During
World War I
Balla's studio became the meeting place for young artists but by the
end of the war the Futurist movement was showing signs of decline. In
1935 he was made a member of Rome's Accademia di San Luca. Balla
participated in the
documenta 1 1955 in
Kassel,
Germany, his work was also shown postmortem during the
documenta 8 in 1987.
