Futurism Art Movement/Style (The machine age)


What is Futurism

Futurism can be defined as a 20th century style art movement that was formed based on the focus to express the power, speed and values of the machine age (www.dictionary.com). The art style was originally started by a group of Italian men including the non-other, well know Italian poet and editor Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who was the ring leader of the foundation. On February 20,1909 the first official announcement of this new art style was made. Marinetti, being the one to compile up the first descriptive manifesto for himself and he’s artistic group’s Futurism movement, it was soon spread to many. It first appeared on the front page of Le Figaro, which at the time was the largest newspaper that had the biggest circulation in France and with that publicity stunt showed the movements ideology, desire and motives of employing this art style to the new and changing modern world was clearly explained to the public (www.theartstory-futurism-html). While the first manifesto basically summed up the main principles of Futurism, the rest of the group would make it a point to issue more manifestos that mentioned other Futurism elements over the years that would come.

Futurism
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (centre), the founder of the Futurist movement, with the artists (left to right) Luigi Russolo, Carlo Carrà, Umberto Boccioni, and Gino Severini.Hulton.

 Archive/Getty Images



Filippo Marinetti alongside he's main Futurism artists at the time included Lugi Russolo, Carlo Carra, Umberto Boccino, and Gino Severini. They all had a very enthusiastic passion for new inventions such as cars, planes and industrial towns because this according to them resembled a major triumph of man over nature. These artists showed pride and embraced this new artistic style in the new modern world at the time  and expressed it through their skills using art media and mediums such as poetry, sculpture, theatre, music, painting and even went as further up to gastronomy (the study of the relationship between food and culture) to show they're passion for change and industrialisation (James -Whtie,2018: no.p).



Futurists unlike cubists who favoured still life and portraiture, futurists rather favoured representations of things that had elements of power, speed and noise such as speeding automobiles, trains, dancers, racing cyclists, animals and urban crowds. They’re artworks always consisted of brighter and more vibrant colours and dynamic, rhythmically swirling forms and violent movements. These were achieved by adopting the cubism technique of using fragmented and intersecting plane surfaces and outlines to show simultaneous views of an object, this effect ultimately resembled a portray equivalent to a multiple photographic exposure of a moving object (James -Whtie,2018: no. p). eg.




Above is an example of an image showing multiple photographic exposure of a moving object taken in the 1960s, by a famous English photographer called David Redfern who got his start taking camera shots for legends like Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk in London’s jazz clubs, with pioneering colour photos that upended the genre’s traditional black-and-white, film-nourish aesthetic. His luminous action shots style, were mostly photographs that captured the diversity of the disco movement, as young people of different races dance with mirrored dance floors, loud music, multi-coloured lights and disco balls overhead (Benstein, 2018: no. p).



Futurism characteristics

·         Futurism developed to glorify the urban life as well as machinery/industrialization

·         Rhythmic spatial repletion of an object

·         Rejecting the art of the past and celebrating change, originality, and innovation as     part of society and culture.

·         Futurism employs techniques of Divisionism

·         Promoted experiences of warfare and reckless speed

·         Rejected everything feminism, safety and dull

·        The Futurists defined themselves as anti-romantic





Other examples of Futurism artworks
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, oil on canvas by Giacomo Balla, 1912; in the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, New York.




 


Futurism Art Movement - Umberto Boccioni
'Elasticity' 1912




Futurism Art Movement - Umberto Boccioni
'The Street Enters the House' 1911





Contrast between old and modern artworks



 


Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913, Bronze


This artwork was created by Umberto Boccioni who was part of the establishment of the futuristic movement as well as writer of some of the manifestos. Boccioni was a painter and sculpture, he created this sculpture out of bronze to most likely represent the metal of machinery age(industrialisation). The sculpture was done in the Futurism art style and is presented in the form of an-aimless nude male in a powerful stride, the weird contours of the muscular body flutter into the surrounding space to resemble speed, expressing the figure’s great velocity and vitality as it rushes forward in its environment which resembles the brave new Futurist ideology world, that modernisation is happening at a fast pace.



Modern Futurist artwork





This artwork was done by an artist known by the name Irina QQQ. She is an artist that specialises mostly in vector/ illustrated artwork but also does digital graphics and painting. Some of her work was shown in the 2014 exhibition at the Guggenheim in New York City that was specifically themed to the influential Futuristic art style named the “Italian Futurism of 1909-1944: Reconstructing the Universe” alongside 5 other major modern Futurists artists. The artwork is an abstract painting that features fractal vintage colourful blurred background that resembles speed/motion. The foreground features wavy, blurred, striking strokes and outlines of paint coloured in different vibrant colours resembling the rejection of dullness. Colours that were used are: green, yellow, orange, red and brown, chaotic blots and seamless patterns. Although the artwork did not feature any structured subjects such as a car or human figure or any other object with elements of power, speed and noise, the artist did however find other means to display these elements within the painting using striking noisy brush outlines, bold and thin strokes different colour paint, and blurriness effect to convey the Futuristic art style of Chaos (Comstock, 2014: no. p).




Reference List


L, Comstock (2014). Shutterstock Inc.

J, James-White (2018). Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc.











































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