Futurism at high volume
Marinetti with Luigi Russolo’s “Dynamism of an Automobile” and a detail from Giacomo Balla’s “Street Light”.
Click the image to see “Street Light” whole.
I could remember only a couple of things about futurism from my art history course at university – speed, and Umberto Boccioni’s fast little statuette, “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, of which I made a drawing at the time.
I was never quite sure of the fuel behind this flamboyant bunch of hard-nosed Italians who seemed to love the fascists as much as they worshipped motion and, being quick, burned out just as fast as Mussolini.
Gino Severini’s “Armoured Train in Action” from 1915
Reading again about them lately, it surprises me that some didn’t end up like Il Duce, hung by the heels, quite dead, and spattered with rotten tomatoes. It’s eseential to be passionate about one’s art, but these guys would beat you up, noisily and with great gusto, if you disagreed with their point of view.
Then again, the futurists created some wonderful paintings, sculpture, poetry and prose, and if my art history prof had had the time, he might have placed this in front of me:
“We had stayed up all night, my friends and I, under hanging mosque lamps with domes of filigreed brass, domes starred like our spirits, shining like them with the prisoned radiance of electric hearts.” See the rest.
