Futurism: Origin & History
The early 20th century saw the origin of a new movement in art, literature and society which had its roots in Italy. It mainly focused on dynamic forms, energy, speed to convey movement in works of art. This movement was a reaction to the rapidly changing society and restless nature of modern life. Both visual art and poetry reflected the concepts of Futurism and it slowly spread to Europe and Russia.
Birth of the term
As the term suggests, Futurism means something that celebrates the changes in future. Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti is credited with coining this term. He published a Manifesto called “Futurism” in 1909 where he mentioned the young artists and poets as “Futurists”. His manifesto was published for the first time and it expressed artistic philosophy rejecting the past; celebrating speed, technology, machinery and industrial revolutions happening in the contemporary times. It even dauntlessly mentioned about accepting the violence- humans taking over nature and triumph of scientific innovations. They were nationalists, glorified war and intensely patriotic. The published manifestos inspired many artists and they started to implement similar ideologies in their artworks. The “Futurists” as they liked to call themselves were coming out of the traditions of the past and together aiming to craft a new future.
Elements of Futurism
The central idea of Futurism was to rejoice the dynamic changes that were happening with the development of industries and technologies in society. When artists started to work along with the similar idea, they were focusing on the use of lines, abstraction of forms and geometric representations. The practice was not limited to painting but included sculpture, ceramic, graphic design, theater, film, textile, music and literature too. Manifestos were published which were also written on topics such as fashion, cinema, photography and cuisines. Painters such as Umberto Boccioni, Luigi Russolo, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Carlo Carra were actively working with Futurists concepts and they were inspired by the contemporary changes happening around. Initially the paintings were done with a similar approach used in Divisionism and the notion of Cubism helped them to break the subjects more into geometric abstraction.
Use of colors and lines
The Futurist artists tried to depict their perception of dynamism, speed and movement through lines and colors in their paintings and sculptures. They used bold and intense colors and played with effects of light to represent movement. The colors were bright and vivid to stimulate the boost of their new concept. They amalgamated the paint application of Neo Impressionism and incorporated the short brush stroke style from Divisionism. Cubist ideologies of angular placement of planes and distortion also helped them to work with multiple angles in creating movement; however the colors were much brighter than that used in Cubism. Because the sole intention was to capture energy. Something called “lines of force” also became popular during the Futurist movement which involved using strong strokes of paint in a repetitive manner. Artists often said they love to capture “the beauty of speed”. And this beauty was achieved by blurring the intensity of colors and loosely arranging the forceful strokes to depict dynamic action. The repeated use of a motif to create a pattern was adapted from Post Impressionist works of Van Gogh and Paul Cezanne. However the intent here is different- it mainly targeted the contemporary situations of growth in science and technology. Artists were also fascinated by the innovation of vehicles and trains which is often seen as a subject in paintings such as “Velocity of train” by Giacomo Balla and “Armored train in action” by Gino Severini. They used a particular element and used it multiple times to create a repetitive effect that generates visual effects of energy, motion and force.
Major Artists of Futurism
The movement was primarily led by artists like Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini and Carlo Carra who were chiefly associated with the concept of Futurism.
Giacomo Balla is one of the prime members of this art style who also practiced music when he was a child. At an young age he developed interest in visual art and started participating in exhibitions. Initially he was practicing illustrations, caricatures, portraits and in 1902 he invented the Futurist style to depict the happenings of the urban crowd. He started to represent speed in abstract terms. One of his notable works is “Dynamism of a dog on Leash” where he has captured multiple stages of movement. A photographic effect has been created by the artist as the dachshund tries to walk away along with its master. Multiple leashes, tails and legs are painted with rhythmic representations and blurry strokes of colors. The blurry repetitive strokes are intentionally used to reduce the effect of vivid colors at certain parts, providing a feeling of velocity and action taking place as the subject moves along.
Giacomo Balla was fascinated by the works of photographic experiments done by Eadweard Muybridge and Etienne-Jules Marey. They were experts in projection of pictures in motion and chronophotography. Chronophotography was a technique that studied movement of subjects in motion and was helpful in scientific uses to study motion in animals and humans. Giacomo Balla was greatly inspired by these studies and implemented the view of multiple perspectives in his work. Such an example is “The Hand of the Violinist” where we observe the neck of the violin and the hand in multiple repeated representations to depict the action of the musician. He also experimented with many geometric forms in paintings and some of his works resemble styles similar to Cubism where he has fragmented the objects or subjects in multiple planes to rearrange them on the canvas.
Few examples of works by Giacomo Balla:
Umberto Boccioni is a renowned painter and sculptor of Futurism whose concepts of dynamism in works continued to help his fellow artists working the same style. During his early years of studying art he practiced detailed anatomical drawings of human postures and movements. After completing his traditional training he also went through the practice of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist styles of painting. He became a student of Giacomo Balla and also studied the concepts and paint applications used in Divisionism.
Early works of Umberto Boccioni showing influence of the classics:
Futurist paintings by Umberto Boccioni:
In 1910, he met Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and came across the manifesto that he had written about Futurism. Gradually Umberto started synthesizing time, form, colors and place in his works and his work “The City Rises” became a turning point in framing the ideologies of Futurism. This is one of the major works in oil paint which took him almost a year to complete. It has a dynamic use of bright primary colors that represent the movement of men and horses; celebrating the labor of working men in a suburban context. The fleeting movement and force of the foreground elements creates a strong contrast with the buildings under construction painted in the background. This work received great admiration from viewers and critics and paved the way to a new approach in the style of Futurist painting.
In 1911 Umberto was actively experimenting with his ideas in three dimensional art too and by the end of 1913, we got his masterpiece- “Unique forms of Continuity in Space” which is a remarkable sculptural representation of the Futurist movement. Motion, time, force and energy had taken the utmost form in space. It gained so much attention even during later years that it was selected to be engraved on the back of the Italian 20-cent euro coin in 1998.
Sculptural works by Umberto Bocionni:
Another most notable member of Futurist style was the Italian painter Gino Severini. He started his career as a Neo-Classicist painter and was also actively experimenting with mediums like fresco and mosaic. He was friends with George Braque and Pablo Picasso and in 1900 he met with Umberto Boccioni. After visiting the studio of Giacomo Balla, they both became his students and started practicing works in Divisionist style. Hence we see Severini’s early works of Futurism show strong influences from the Divisionism approach of painting. He was invited by the poets and artists to join the Futurist group of painters. In 1930 he took part in the Venice Biennale and we see the use of Rome’s classical landscape in his works. Later in the 1940s his work moved towards semi abstraction and once again we see subjects of light, movement and speed in his paintings.
Few examples of works by Gino Severini:
During the beginning of the 20th century Carlo Carra was also a leading member of the Futurist group of painters. Apart from being an artist he is also known for his writings on visual art. In 1910 he signed up with other artists and was an active member of the “Manifesto of Futurist Painters”. His works reflect strong influences from Cubist style of painting in terms of lines and colors though the concept varied. He brought a new reality in his works while experimenting on how objects and humans get constructed in space.
Few examples of works by Carlo Carra:
Decline of Futurism:
The advent of World War I caused hindrance in the movement of Futurism as many of the eminent artists lost their lives. The political scenario was not in favor of the painters and artists like Giacomo Balla and Carlo Carra had stopped working. They started to realize that the scientific and industrial growth was an illusion and actually causing potential harm to mankind. The army was becoming strong due to such innovations which followed brutal treatment of the citizens. This is why many artists and poets started to reject the ideals of Futurism and went back to traditional approaches, even though its style and elements were adopted later by German Expressionists.
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