Futurism 1909-2009
Back to the Future

By Nicolas Stark
february 2009

In “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism” Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing of everything old, especially political and artistic tradition. The Futurists admired speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city, all that represented the technological triumph of humanity over nature, and they were passionate nationalists.
“ We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness,” began the 11-point manifesto (published in Le Figaro, Paris February 20th 1909), which centres on “eternal, omnipresent speed”. These volatile dandies sought to shock the world into a modern, machine-age utopia with the artist as hero.

Marinetti exalted violence and conflict and called for the sweeping repudiation of traditional cultural, social and political values and the destruction of cultural institutions such as museums and libraries. The manifesto's rhetoric was passionately bombastic; its tone was aggressive and inflammatory and was deliberately intended to spark public anger and amazement, to arouse controversy and to attract widespread attention. Futurist events were often happenings that finished in chaos or brawls.
The pioneer futurists were true to their word about the glorification of war: “We will glorify war – the world's only hygiene – militarism, patriotism... beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.”

So when the First World War began, the futurists were ardent propagandists for Italian intervention. That war claimed the lives of their two greatest talents, the architect Antonio Sant'Elia, whose designs for “La Città Nuova” (“The New City”) project created a soaring vision of the possibilities of modern architecture, and the sculptor/painter Umberto Boccioni, whose work pushed towards a striving, twisting art of movement.
The Futurists wanted a human sacrifice to save their country's soul. Massacre was welcomed as a beneficent purge, “a necessary holocaust”.
It would be precisely the Futurist’s idea of a national unity forged through heroic collective effort that Mussolini would exploit in his creation of fascism.
After the First World War Marinetti formed a futurist political party that was quickly absorbed into the nascent Fascist movement. He remained an active Fascist for the life-span of the movement, following Mussolini to his Fascist puppet state, the Republic of Salò.
That the Futurism movement did get itself tangled up with Fascism is beyond dispute, though not all the Futurists signed up for Il Duce.
What most of the Futurists did buy into without much reservation was Marinetti's double-barrelled rhetoric about the modern world, which decried the past (let's burn down the libraries, flood the museums, take hatchets to the art galleries!) and trumpeted the new, especially machinery (hurrah for cars, aircraft, urban crowds, bombs and the electric light bulb!).

Painters in the movement did have a serious intent beyond Marinetti's bombast, however. Their works featured rampant colours and violent energy, extolling the merits of a new, technologically advanced age.
The futurists' representation of forms in motion influenced many painters, including Marcel Duchamp and Robert Delaunay, and such movements as Cubism and Russian Constructivism.

Although the most significant results of the movement were in the visual arts and poetry, Futurism tried to wage war on every cultural front. In addition to Futurist painting and poetry, there was Futurist theatre, Futurist clothing, Futurist typography, Futurist music and even Futurist cuisine.
Futurism was one of the broadest, most encompassing artistic movements of the 20th century, although it tends to be denied the importance it deserves because of its political associations. Futurism influenced many other twentieth century art movements, including Art Deco, Vorticism, Constructivism, Surrealism and Dada.

With the death of its leader Marinetti in 1944 the movement effectively came to an end, and Futurism was, like science fiction, in part overtaken by 'the future'.
But the ideals of futurism remain as significant elements of modern Western cultural life; the emphasis on youth, speed, power and technology finding expression in much of modern commercial cinema and culture.

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