Futurism

Futurism, a unique phenomenon to the modern era, not only found its roots in many of the arts, but also and most persuasively in politics. The Futurists were the first artists of this century who pledged themselves to ideological activism and devoted their energies and talents to converting he masses to that ideal, rather than to formalizing and promoting their individual artistic merits." The Futurist artistic movement began not through a series of works as most other artistic movements do, but through a series of manifests.

As with most movements, there was one central figure who was the driving force behind the entire Futurist movement, Filipo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti was a lawyer and an artist who had a great interest in reshaping the arts, and after graduating from undergraduate and law school, began publishing a controversial literary magazine, "Poesia." The magazine dealt with what Marinetti felt was a static and obsolete past, and expressed the desire for a new and innovative society. Another goal of Marinetti's magazine was to incite political activism, which was being suppressed by a monarchy run by King Victor Emmanuel III, interested in pacifying dissidents. Marinetti focused all of his rancor at the King and urged the citizens of Italy to protest the cruel treatment they were receiving. He also proposed that Italy should become a more integral member of the European community and blamed the King for the inability of Italy to become a major country in the areas of European policy, as Europe was often dominated by the stronger countries of England and Germany.

As Marinetti developed his artistic philosophies and his journalistic abilities, he saw the need to codify his beliefs in some sort of doctrine. A Paris newspaper Le Figaro published Marinetti's The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism on July 20, 1909. In this manifesto, Marinetti originates the term "Futurism", which reflected his emphasis on discarding the static and unimportant art of the past and rejoicing in the turbulence, originality, and creativity in art, culture, and society. Marinetti's manifesto also professed the importance of new technology, specifically of the automobile, because of its power and complexity. He encouraged disagreement and violent demonstration and called for the sweeping rejection of orthodox political ideals and the destruction of institutions such as museums and libraries. The design of their manifesto was to create widespread attention for Marinett's positions. He, therefore, designed to be particularly insightful in order to generate discussion and action.

Marinetti's bellicose manifesto generated interest and brought Italy into the Twentieth century. His militant views on politics and is visionary artistic mind created a public demand for a forward thinking society. Many artists were drawn to Marinetti's empassioned statements; others only in spirit. Some artists pointed out that there was nothing new in the Futurist movement, while although it was most likely true, did not dissuade its followers

Never the less, the concepts in The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism seemed to spread faster than one could read it. Protest started occurring all over the countryside in Italy. Futurists held meetings, gave speeches, boycotted, and employed many other types of demonstration in order to further their political position. They protested at first about the passéism of Italian society, but soon directed their efforts toward support of the African Campaign, which was fought in 1911. This campaign won Italy more land and power and it became a more important European player. The people voicing displeasure of the positions of the Futurists were the Socialists and the Catholics, who were still in support of the government positions.

Marinetti turned his political efforts to reacquiring land in the northern portion of Italy that had been claimed by Austria. He was again rewarded and in 1915, Italy won back the rights to most of these northern territories. When World War I started shortly after, the Futurists all enlisted. Some of them, such as Luigi Russolo, became officers in the army and became highly decorated soldiers. At the end of the war, the Futurists returned to their promotion of their forward thinking philosophies. These interested a forward-thinking, young Fascist named Benito Mussolini. It was Mussolini who became one of the most politically active in conjunction with the positions of the Futurists, during the years 1918 to 1920. After the successful reintegration of the position of the Futurists in society, Mussolini used his political clout to silence them. The discarded Futurists became embittered by the political situation, and with drew them selves from political activism.

The artistic actions of the Futurist movement are equally significant to the development of the cultural development of Italy. After writing The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism, Marinetti became the de facto leader of the Futurist movement. So powerful was the doctrine that all succeeded Futurist doctrines merely try to echo the language and style of his ground breaking writing. The first manifest dealing with the Visual Arts was The Manifest of Futurist Painters published in 1910 by Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, Balla and Severni. In the manifesto, they explain the pistons and goals of Futurist art. Among these are: "Elevate all attempts at originality, however daring, however violent..., 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, and Support and glory in our day-to-day world, a world which is going to be continually splendidly transformed by victorious Science." This manifesto was the fist the expounded upon Marinetti's manifesto and related it to a specific art.

The new manifesto inspired artists to begin painting art that reflected the new, forward thinking ideals of the Futurists. From 1910 to 1911, the Futurist artist attempted to perfect their craft and develop a style of painting. In February of 1912, the first Futurist art exhibit was held The new Futurist paintings were dominated by the inclusion of new technologies and scientific development. It was their belief that painting of nudes were akin to anatomical studies. It was the position of these artists that they must consider what one remembers and what one sees. The Futurist art exhibit taught the artists about the articulation of their goals, which they shared to artists in other media. Inspired by this discovery, numerous other manifesto were generated regarding the other arts.

In all of the Futurist painting displayed in this exhibition, as well as subsequent paintings, the Futurist artists had common elements to their works of art. The painters saw the lines and planes of objects, rather than as reflected light. The ideas of these two phenomena existing concurrently is one which the Futurists labeled "simultaneity". Simultaneity was as Boccioni described a "pictoral synthesis" designed to represent a large focus of life in a relatively confined space. These were juxtaposed by the use of force-lines were the method by which the Futurists expressed dynamism in pictoral terms. The concept of force-lines were that the dissolution of the objects at the edges of the paintings which moved the artist into the painting. Carlo Carrà's painting Demonstration for Intervention in the War and Umberto Bocchioni's sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space are good examples of art which follows these models. The art work of the Futurists were similar in construct to the Futurist music which arose as a result to develop all forms of Futurist art.

The Futurists felt that the introduction of Futurism into music would end the limitations put to sound and timbre. They then concluded that the way this could best be accomplished was by incorporating noise into their compositions. One of the resident composers of Futurism was Luigi Russolo, and artists and amateur composer. It was Russolo's belief that music had at the beginning of its inception been attributed to the gods and was therefore always a revered art form that was beyond reproach. he further that rhythm and pitch selection had been determined at an early point in man's history and the complex components such as polyphony were man's ways of adding progress to music. It was because music had reached such a great complexity, he concluded that the incorporation of noise as part of the musical language was the next logical step.

Armed with this idea, Russolo published a manifesto entitled The Art of Noises. Russolo's belief was that this doctrine would serve as the theoretical model for which sound could be incorporated into the world of music. Feeling that classification of these sounds was necessary, Russolo created six separate categories: 1. Roars, thunders, bursts (explosions), gushings, showers (of water), splashes, rumbles. 2. Whistlings, hissings, puffs. 3. Whispers, murmuring, grumbles, confused noises, gurglings. 4. Scrapings, creakings, gratings, rustlings, buzzings, cracklings, rubbings, shufflings. 5. Noises obtained percussively on: metals, woods, skins, stones terrcotta. 6. Voices of animals and men: shouting, screams, groan, shrieks, howlings, laughters, rattles, sobs. The rhythms he stated were infinite, but there was always a primary rhythmic element to a piece. There are other perceptible rhythms, but they are secondary.

Russolo and another Futurist Piatti designed instruments called "Intonarumori" which were of the classes of sounds and were specially designed for performances of these types of compositions. Most of the intonarumori were played by holding a lever, which controlled pitch by tone, semi-tone, and fractional tone, with the left hand and turning a crank, which determined the tone of the noise, with the right hand. Using these instruments, Russolo gave several concerts, one in Milan on April 21, 1914, and one in Paris on June 18, 1921.

Luigi Russolo was not the first futurist to create a manifesto on music. The first manifesto was The Manifesto of Futurist Musicians written in 1912 by Futurist composer Balilla Pratella. The ideas that Pratella included in his manifesto are quite similar the those of the other Futurists. These ideas may be summed up as follows: 1. Musicians must abandon the conservatories and the academies and compose their work in an atmosphere of complete freedom. 2. Librettos must be written to suit the new conceptions: dramatic poems in free verse set to music. 3, The traditional "mise en scène," the Neapolitan chansonette, etc., must be abandoned. 4. Writers must compose their own operas. Pratella disregarded the concepts of consonance and dissonance in his music, as did other Futurist musicians. Pratella also saw the value of enharmonic music. It is in enharmonic music that intonation is extremely important and using this characteristic of music could be highly effective.

In addition to his writings and philosophies of the Futurist movement, Pratella composed several significant music compositions L'aviatore Dro, based on the glorification of flying and the airplane and another opera La Sina d'Vargöun which won the Concord Baruzzi prize. In addition he wrote several other compositions: Musica futurista per orchestra, La guerra, danses futuristes, and Gioia. These pieces were described as having "intense vitality" and "emotional feeling" and music which "transcends dynamic expression by its rhythmic quality."

The Futurist musicians believed above all else the music must express the soul of the society for which it was composed. During the turn of the century, they viewed this soul to be the new technological advances of the time: the automobile, the trains, the steamer ships, and airplanes. The use of sound as a musical material is most significant, as not only would it find its way into traditional compositions, like those of George Antheil and Mussolov, but would find their way into the very first compositions of electronic music by Pierre Schaeffer.