The Futurists
There were -isms cropping up right and left in the 19th and 20th centuries. One of my favorites has to be Futurism. Futurism was a broad art movement that began in 1909 in Italy. It included painting, poetry, music, literature, theater, sculpture, architecture, and photography and gave rise to the first truly modern art.
The Futurists, were young, bold, and full of bull and bravado. Some of their art has not stood the test of time, but much of it has.
Here is a portion of one of their many manifestos:
- Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients, pedantry and academic formalism.
- Totally invalidate all kinds of imitation.
- Elevate all attempts at originality, however daring, however violent.
- Bear bravely and proudly the smear of “madness” with which they try to gag all innovators.
- Regard art critics as useless and dangerous.
- Rebel against the tyranny of words: “Harmony” and “good taste” and other loose expressions which can be used to destroy the works of Rembrandt, Goya, Rodin...
- Sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes and subjects which have been used in the past.
- Support and glory in our day-to-day world, a world which is going to be continually and splendidly transformed by victorious Science.
- The dead shall be buried in the earth’s deepest bowels! The threshold of the future will be swept free of mummies! Make room for youth, for violence, for daring!
Manifesto of the Futurist Painters: February 10, 1911
Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini
TO THE YOUNG ARTISTS OF ITALY!
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...
With our enthusiastic adherence to Futurism, we will:
