Futurism came into being with the appearance of a manifesto

published by the poet Filippo Marinetti on the front page of the

February 20, 1909, issue of Le Figaro. It was the very first
manifesto of this kind.
Marinetti summed up the major principles of the Futurists. He and
others espoused a love of speed, technology and violence.
Futurism was presented as a modernist movement celebrating the
technological, future era. The car, the plane, the industrial town
were representing the motion in modern life and the technological
triumph of man over nature. Some of these ideas, specially the use
of modern materials and technique, were taken up later by Marcel
Duchamp (French, 1887-1968), the cubist, the constructivist and
the dadaist.
Futurism was inspired by the development of Cubism and went
beyond its techniques. The Futurist painters made the rhythm of
their repetitions of lines. Inspired by some photographic
experiments, they were breaking motion into small sequences, and
using the wide range of angles within a given time-frame all aimed
to incorporate the dimension of time within the picture. Brilliant
colors and flowing brush strokes also additionally were creating the
illusion of movement. Futurism influenced many other 20th century
art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism and
Surrealism.
Futurists mixed activism and artistic research. They organized
events that caused scandal. Everything was there to help them to
glorify Italy and lead their country into the age of modernity. Certain
Futurists vehemently promoted themselves to try to join forces with
the Fascists, who were coming to power at the time. But Mussolini
showed a preference for the Novecento Italiano, movement of
artists who identified with the classical order and Italian heritage.
Futurism was a largely Italian movement, although it also had
adherents in other countries, France and most notably Russia.
Close to Futurism with its inspirations and motivations was
Precisionism, an important development of American Modernism.
Although Futurism itself is now regarded as extinct, having died
out during the 1920s, powerful echoes of Marinetti's thought, still
remain in modern, popular culture and art. Futurism influenced
many other 20th century art movements, including Art Deco,
Vorticism, Constructivism and Surrealism.
Main Representatives

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

Giacomo Balla

Carlo Carra

Umberto Boccioni

Gino Severini

Luigi Russolo

David Burliuk

Ilya Zdanevich

Olga Rozanova

In the 1920's and 1930's the term Futurism was loosely used to describe a wide variety of
aggressively modern styles in art and literature. The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
coined the term in 1909 for a movement founded and led by himself.
Futurism was the first deliberately organized, self-conscious art movement of the twentieth
century. It quickly spread to France, Germany, Russia and the Americas, appealing to all who
had tired of romanticism, decadence and sentimentality, desirious of something more
vigorous and robust, something in keeping with the Machine Age. Speed, noise, machines,
transportation, communication, information...and all the transient impressions of life in the
modern city intoxicated Marinetti and his followers. They despised tame, bourgeois virtues
and tastes, and above everything else, loathed the cult of the past. One Italian critic labelled
them 'art wiseguys' calling them 'the caffeine of Europe.' In a series of manifestos designed
to shock and provoke the public, they formulated styles of painting, music, sculpture,
theatre, poetry, architecture, cooking, clothing, and furniture. The manifestos vividly
preserve the flavor of the movement. They still provoke, irritate, and amuse while opening
endless possibilities still under exploration today.

The Futurism Art Movement

The Futurism art movement was a totally Italian modern art movement. Unlike other modern art
movements that sprang from developing or reacting against other artistic styles developments in art,
Futurism seemed to spring from an idea, and the style of how to translate the ideas into the visual arts
came afterwards.
The Futurism art movement celebrated technology, modernity, speed, violence and youth; it glorified war
and was in favour of the growth of Fascism. The Futurism movement really began with the publication of
the poet Filippo Marinettis Futurism Manifesto, in Le Figaro in February 1909. The manifesto was
passionate and bombastic in tone, expressing disdain for anything old, particularly in the fields of art and
politics. One could be forgiven for thinking that the primary aim of the manifesto was to shock people.

Futurism Art Movement - Umberto Boccioni

'Elasticity' 1912
The Futurism art movement was by no means a movement of painters. It covered all fields of creativity,
including architecture, literature, textiles, ceramics, theatre, film, industrial design, etc. Marinetti's
manifesto attracted the attention of young painters in Milan, who wanted to translate the Futurist ideas to
the visual arts. This led in 1910 to the publication of the 'Manifesto of the Futurist Painters'.
This manifesto was not unlike Marinetti's original in tone, including for example the following section; "We
rebel against that spineless worshipping of old canvases, old statues and old bric-a-brac, against
everything which is filthy and worm-ridden and corroded by time. We consider the habitual contempt for
everything which is young, new and burning with life to be unjust and even criminal."

Futurism Art Movement - Umberto Boccioni

'The Street Enters The House' 1911
Despite their passionate manifesto, the Futurist painters took a while to develop a meaningful style that
would embody their ideas. The earliest Futurist paintings utilised the theory of Divisionism, building
images up from a series of dots and strips of pure colour. It wasnt until seeing the work of Cubist painters
in Paris in 1911 that the Futurists adopted the techniques of the Cubist artists, which they felt presented a
means of analysing and controlling the energy of paintings, to capture what they called the force lines of
objects.
Despite learning lessons from the Cubists, the paintings of the Futurist art movement were very different
to the work of Picasso and Braque. While the Futurists did produce some portraits, their more typical
subjects were urban scenes and vehicles in motion. The focus on movement and speed contrasts
strongly with the Cubists static analytical works.

Futurism Art Movement - Umberto Boccioni

'Unique Forms Of Continuity In Space' 1913

What is Futurism : Futurism was a 20th century art movement. The Futurists loved
speed, noise, machines, pollution, and cities; they embraced the exciting new
world that was then upon them rather than hypocritically enjoying the modern
world's comforts while loudly denouncing the forces that made them possible.
Fearing and attacking technology has become almost second nature to many
people today; the Futurist manifestos show us an alternative philosophy.
Although a nascent Futurism can be seen surfacing throughout the very early
years of that century, the 1907 essay Entwurf einer neuen ?sthetik der Tonkunst
(Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music) by the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni is
sometimes claimed as its true jumping-off point. Futurism was a largely Italian
and Russian movement although it also had adherents in other countries.
The Futurists explored every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, poetry,
theatre, music, architecture and even gastronomy. The Italian poet Filippo
Tommaso Marinetti was the first among them to produce a manifesto of their
artistic philosophy in his Manifesto of Futurism (1909), 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 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, Carr?, 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.
The painter and sculptor Umberto Boccioni (1882 - 1916) wrote the Manifesto of
Futurist Painters in 1910 in which he vowed: "We will fight with all our might the
fanatical, senseless and snobbish religion of the past, a religion encouraged by
the vicious existence of museums. We rebel against that spineless worshipping of
old canvases, old statues and old bric-a-brac, against everything which is filthy
and worm-ridden and corroded by time. We consider the habitual contempt for
everything which is young, new and burning with life to be unjust and even
criminal."
Futurism in the 1920's and 1930's
Many Italian Futurists instinctively supported the rise of fascism in Italy in the
hope of modernizing the society and the economy of a country that was still torn
between unfilled industrial revolution in the North and the rural, archaic South.
Some Futurists' glorification of modern warfare as the ultimate artistic expression
and their intense nationalism also induced them to embrace Italian fascism. Many
Futurists became associated with the regime over the 1920's, which gave them
both official recognition and the ability to carry out important works, especially in

architecture.
However, some leftists that came to Futurism in the earlier years continued to
oppose Marinetti's domination of the artistic and political direction of Futurism.
Futurism expanded to encompass other artistic domains. In architecture, it was
characterized by a distinctive thrust towards rationalism and modernism through
the use of advanced building materials. In Italy, futurist architects were often at
odds with the fascist state's tendency towards Roman imperial/classical aesthetic
patterns. However several interesting futurist buildings were built in the years
1920?1940, including many public buildings: stations, maritime resorts, post
offices, etc. See, for example, Trento's railway station built by Angiolo Mazzoni (as
you can see in the picture on the right).

Umberto Boccioni
Style: Futurism
Lived: October 19, 1882 - August 16, 1916 (20th century)
Nationality: Italy
Umberto Boccioni was born on October 19, 1882 in Reggio Calabria. He studied art through
the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, beginning in 1901. He
also studied design with a sign painter in Rome. In 1902, Boccioni studied Impressionist and
Post-Impressionist styles in Paris. During later 1906 and early 1907, he took drawing classes
at the Accademia di Belle Arti. In 1901, Boccioni first visited the Famiglia Artistica, a society
for artists in Milan. There he became acquainted with fellow Futurists including the famous
poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The two would later join with others in writing manifestos on
Futurism.
Boccioni was both a Futurist painter and sculptor. One of Umberto Boccioni's best known
paintings is The street enters the house (La Strada Entra Nella Casa) in the Sprengel
Museum in Hanover, Germany which featured an exhibition on futurism in 2001. Other
important Boccioni works include the bronze scupture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space
(1913) and the painting, The City Rises (1910). His first solo exhibition was held in 1910 at
the Galleria Ca' Pesaro in Venice.
Boccioni expressed the overarching beliefs of Futurism in his Techincal Manifesto of Futurist
Sculpture. Other works that he co-authored include Manifesto of the Futurist Painters and
Techincal Manifesto of Futurist Painting published around 1910. In 1912, Boccioni shifted to
sculputre and published his Manifesto of Futurist Sculpters. All of these writings call for
young artists to intensely pursue living, dynamic, and original forms of art. Traditional art
techniques and styles were discarded and art critics ignored. Futurists glorified
transformations of the world brought on by science.

Boccioni died on August 16, 1916 in Verona after falling off a horse during a training exercise
for World War I.

Giacomo Balla
Style: Futurism
Lived: July 18, 1871 - March 1, 1958 (19th - 20th century)
Nationality: Italy
Giacomo Balla was born in Turin on July 18, 1871 as the son of an industrial chemist. As a
child he studied music.
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
Dsseldorf 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. 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 (Velocit 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.
Giacomo Balla died in Rome on March 1, 1958.

Carlo Carra
(b Quarguento, Piedmont, 11 Feb 1881; d Milan, 13 April 1966).
Italian painter, critic and writer. He was apprenticed to a team of decorators at the age of
12, after the death of his mother. His work took him to Milan, London and Switzerland, as

well as to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. He visited museums, and in Milan in
1906 he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, studying under Cesare Tallone. By
1908 he was arranging shows for the Famiglia Artistica, an exhibiting group. He met
Umberto Boccioni and Luigi Russolo, and together they came to know Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti and to write the Manifesto dei pittori futuristi (1910). Carr continued, however, to
use the technique of DIVISIONISM despite the radical rhetoric of Futurism. In an attempt to
find new inspiration Marinetti sent them to visit Paris in autumn 1911, in preparation for the
Futurist exhibition of 1912. Cubism was a revelation, and in 1911 Carr reworked a large
canvas that he had begun in 1910, the Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (New York, MOMA; see
fig.). He had witnessed the riot at the event in 1904. The crowd and the mounted police
converge in violently hatched red and black, as Carr attempted the Futurist aim to place
the spectator at the centre of the canvas. In the reworking he attempted to make the space
more complex and the lighting appear to emerge from within.
Biography of Carlo Carr
Carlo Carr was born in Quargnento, in the province of Alessandria, Italy, in 1881 to a family of artisans.
After working as a mural decorator for about ten years in the cities of Valenza Po, Milan, Paris, London
and Bellinzona, in 1906 he enrolled at the Brera Art Academy, where he met the young painters
Bonzagni, Romani, Valeri and Boccioni. In 1910 together with Marinetti, Boccioni and Russolo he wrote
a manifesto addressing young artists, encouraging them to adopt a new expressive language. Balla and
Severini did just that: this was the start of futurism.
In early 1913 the futurist movement also became a point of reference for the Florence based group of
artists "la Voce", who were setting up the new magazine "Lacerba", directed by Papini and Soffici. Carr
regularly contributed to the magazine "Lacerba" with articles and drawings. At the same time he
cultivated closer ties with the French cubists and in 1914 moved to Paris for several months. But he was
already moving away from futurism: his collages were a first clear sign of the break from the Marinetti
movement. This was the start of a period of reflection and study of the classics for Carr, as he looked
to Giotto and Paolo Uccello; his first metaphysical paintings date back to around this time.
Called up to fight in the war, Carr spent time at Pieve di Cento but, for health reasons, was sent to the
military hospital in Ferrara, where he met De Chirico, Savinio, Govoni and De Pisis. In 1919 he returned
to Milan and married Ines Minoja. He later went through a period of interior and artistic breakdown, from
which he emerged with a fresh vision of painting, as he strived to simplify imagery. This is the
background to his third artistic stage, the so-called "lyric realism", which began in 1921. He definitively
embraced a new synthesis between idea and nature and his preferred subjects were landscapes. In
1923 he went to Camogli, in Liguria. From 1926 on he spent several months in Forte dei Marmi, in
Versilia, where he was left in awe of the bright, solitary landscapes, the deserted beaches, the
mountains reaching down to the sea, the abandoned huts.
As well as his work as an artist, Carr fought a battle to breathe life into modern art, writing criticism and
aesthetic doctrines. He worked with the magazine "Lacerba" and "La Voce", with "Valori Plastici", "Esprit
Nouveau", "La Fiera letteraria" and the daily newspaper "L'Ambrosiano".
The artist died on 13th April 1966, after a sudden illness.
The Russian poet Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930) is best known for his
colorful, declamatory style and his use of the language of the streets as poetic material. His
artistic innovations strongly influenced the development of Soviet poetry.
Vladimir Mayakovsky was born on July 19, 1893, in Russian Georgia. When his father, a forester, died in 1906, the
family moved to Moscow. This was to be Mayakovsky's city until his death. Between 1906 and 1911 Mayakovsky
was arrested several times for his political activities. He joined the Bolshevik party in 1908. In 1909, during one of
his terms in prison, he wrote his first verses.

Mayakovsky studied at the Moscow Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1911 until he was
expelled in 1914. During this period he published his first book of poetry, I! (1913), and became the leading figure
in the avant-garde futurist movement in Russian poetry.
Russian futurism was as much a way of life as it was a poetic doctrine. It arose as a reaction to the extreme
estheticism of Russian poetry at the turn of the century and to the prevailing mysticism in Russian intellectual life.
Mayakovsky and his companions advocated the abandonment of the Russian tradition and the creation of a new art,
one free of the past. They took their cause to the streets, declaiming their verses to chance audiences and going to
any lengths to shock a tradition-bound public. Their shocking behavior and mode of dress gained them an instant
reputation. Mayakovsky's poetry of these prerevolutionary years is polemical but not devoid of poetic content. It is
an exceptionally personal poetry. Often it takes the form of a monologue addressed to the poet's mother and sister.
The poet bares his self to the public in a style which is by turns ironic and sad. The title of his long verse drama is
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1913), and it is subtitled "A Tragedy." In his most successful book, A Cloud in Trousers
(1915), he acclaims the poet as the thirteenth apostle. Increasingly after 1915 Mayakovsky appears to have been
trapped between his public role of apostle and his private suffering, the well-spring of his poetry.
Mayakovsky welcomed revolution in 1917 and put himself wholeheartedly at the service of the new Soviet state. He
wrote popular verse, created propaganda posters, and lent his name to numerous public causes. In his own poetry,
Mayakovsky continued his attack on the classical Russian tradition and proclaimed a poetry of the masses. He
sought to write only for the masses, excluding any reference to the poetic self. Thus, his epic poem 150,000,000
(1921) was published anonymously. Mayakovsky described his postrevolutionary poetry as "tendentious realism,"
and there is no doubt that he achieved this realism at the expense of his true poetic talent.
Mayakovsky traveled widely in the 1920s. He went several times to western Europe and in 1925 to America. During
a trip to Paris, he fell in love with a Russian migr. Toward the end of the 1920s it became more and more difficult
for Mayakovsky to get permission to travel abroad. He felt increasingly the burden of his public posture and the
pain of having abandoned his private poetic self. This alienation from the woman he loved and from his very self led
him to commit suicide on April 14, 1930, in Moscow. He could no longer maintain the dual role of public apostle
and private poet.
Further Reading
A good selection of Mayakovsky's writings is available as The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (1964), which has a
good introductory essay by the editor, Patricia Blake. A full-length biography of Mayakovsky is Wiktor
Woroszylski, The Life of Mayakovsky (trans. 1971). The account of Mayakovsky's life in "Safe Conduct" in Boris
Pasternak, Selected Writings (1949; new ed. 1958), is an interesting interpretive biography. The best treatment of
Mayakovsky's artistic innovations and his role in the futurist movement is Cecil Maurice Bowra, The Creative
Experiment (1949).

Vladimir Mayakovsky
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(1893-1930)

A leading Russian graphic designer, painter, writer, poet, and critic of the early 20th century, Mayakovsky was
closely involved with the artistic avant-garde in Moscow, including the Russian Futurists and the Constructivists, He
designed many propaganda posters and wrote poems and plays in support of the Russian Revolutionary cause.
Whilst studying at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1911 to 1914 he met the
Burlyuk brothers around whom Russian Futurism was centred. After working on a series of Cubo-Futurist paintings
in 1914 he began to design simple anti-German and anti-Turkish war propaganda posters, combining rudimentary
images with rhyming script. A keen supporter of the Russian Revolution of 1917 Mayakovsky played a key role in
the dissemination of Bolshevik propaganda through his film scripts, plays, and posters. He declared that the streets
are our brushes, the squares our palettes, a statement carried through in his designs for street decorations,
propaganda trains, and architecture. From 1919 Mayakovsky worked for Rosta (the Russian telegraph agency),
producing a large number of stencilled posters whose readily understood, cartoon-like images visually informed an
often illiterate public about the successes of the Red Army or various government campaigns such as the health
programme. The format of sequenced images and texts is thought to have derived from folk art, notably the lubok,
a traditional popular, woodblock-printed, almost comic-like literature. Such posters were highly visible through their
display in empty shop windows, unoccupied business premises, telegraph offices, railway stations, and elsewhere.
After the end of the Civil War in 1921, Mayakovsky became the leader of the Moscow LEF (Left Front of the Arts)
and editor of its journal, LEF. The latter was a mouthpiece for the Productiviststhose Constructivists who believed
that fine artists should apply their talents to the design and production of everyday goods. Under Lenin's New
Economic Policy (NEP) Mayakovsky worked closely with Alexander Rodchenko on the design of advertisements
of all kinds, from newspapers to billboards. With the rise of totalitarianism under Stalin from the later 1920s
Mayakovsky's work was seen increasingly as elitist and out of touch with the masses.