2. History
The Italian Futurism is the first art
movement that can be considered an
avant-garde movement.
They introduced with their art an
ideological interest that affected
deeply culture and even social costumes,
when denies all the past, substituting it
by stylistic and technical
experimentation.
3. Artists
It officially began with Marinetti’s
manifesto in 1909
The manifesto was signed by
Balla,
Carra,
Boccioni,
Russolo
and Soffici.
4. Philosophy
The avant-garde movements are a phenomenon
typical of non well developed countries in
which the movement appears as a rebellion in
front of the official culture, normally
moderate.
They align in the side of progressive political
movements.
Even being intentionally revolutionary, their
effort is more polemic. In the futurist manifest
they mention the destruction of historical city
and museums
5. Philosophy
They appeared in favour of the new
city, imagined as a machine in
movement.
Their revolution is the industrial or
technological revolution, this is, a
bourgeois revolution.
In the new civilization the machines,
the intellectual-artists represent
the genius.
6. Characteristics
The futurists define themselves as anti-
romantic, and they want to follow their
own moods so works are highly emotive.
They exalt:
science
and technique
but they want them to be
poetic
and lyric.
7. Characteristics
They assure they are socialist, but they are
not interested in working class fights
and they consider the intellectuals of
avant-garde as the aristocracy of the
future.
When they have to choose in politics they
prefer the nationalism. The movement
lasted until the end of WW1 but it was
dissolved after it.
8. Characteristics
The characteristics of the movement
were their interest in an art forged
out of the beauty of speed and a
glorification of war.
The physical movement, as long as
speed is concerned, is the cohesive
factor that allows the fusion of
object and space
9. Characteristics
They aimed at eliminating the basic
dualism of the traditional culture.
The unit of the real should not be
produce in the thoughts but in
sensations, in an emotive way.
The artist must underline dynamism
to make it more emotive
10. Characteristics
Forms are full of freedom, breaking the
elements but sometimes is not
completely abstract
Important use of colour, in contrast with
the cubism, to which it keeps some
similes in form
Strong lines and combination with
pointillist technique
Compositions full of movement
Subjects compromised with society
12. Boccioni
• He was the author of the Futurist Manifest in 1910
• In order to free artists from the past he advised them to
enter in the modern world, using for that purpose:
– Movement
– Speed
– Dynamism
• Although he received cubist influences he did not use straight
lines
• He used colour to give the impression of vibration
• In order to depict dynamism he represented different
movements at the same time
• In sculpture he combined wood, iron and glass
• He wanted to depict the interrelation in between an object
in movement and the space around it.