Futurism

Futurism

Image source:-www.widewalls.ch/magazine/futurism-art

"In the early 1900s, a group of young and rebellious Italian writers and artists emerged determined to celebrate industrialization." In 1908 charismatic Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was driving along a road outside of Milan when he had to dramatically swerve into a ditch to avoid hitting two cyclists. While lying in the ditch, he realized that the beauty and violence of the modern age must be celebrated by art. The futurism movement was born. Marinetti became obsessed with everything the future has to offer. In 1909, he laid out his idea to the world in his manifesto of futurism. He wanted to rewrite culture. His futurist vision could be applied to everything from literature, theatre architecture, and fashion and even to cooking, but it particularly captured the imagination of a group of like-minded Italian artists. Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, and Luigi Russolo, banded together and wrote the manifesto of futurist painters. "The futurism was a group of artists who thought the world was stuck in a boring, old-fashioned rut and wanted it to look forward by celebrating innovation, modernity, and speed."

Instead of painting the usual mythological scenes, chubby babies or naked ladies rising out of shells, they veered toward chaotic and portrayals of speed, movement, and power. These paintings all depicted the united concept of violence. Futurism also took inspiration from cubist artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque by using fragmented, intersecting views of the same subject.

Umberto Boccioni

"Let us fling open the figure and let it incorporate within itself whatever may surround it."

Image source:-www.theartstory.org/artist/boccioni-umberto/artworks/

The first major futurist work to grasp the attention of the nation was Boccioni’s the city rises, which depicted the construction of Milan’s new electrical power plant. Boccioni expresses a sense of strength and dynamism by using blurred, repetitive brush strokes and merging colors to animate the skittish animal. This technique was called Divisionism and was commonly used by futurist painters. 

Luigi Russolo

“Industrial revolution had given modern men a greater capacity to appreciate more complex sounds.” 

Image source:-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamism_of_a_Car_(Russolo)

In Luigi Russolo’s dynamism of a car, the vehicle is painted in multiple angular forms that all converted to left. This creates what is known as force lines which adds pace and direction to a painting 

Giacomo Balla

"Divisionism, painting with divided rather than mixed color and breaking the painted surface into a field of stippled dots and stripes."

Image source:-www.britannica.com/topic/Dynamism-of-a-Dog-on-a-Leash

In Giacomo Balla dog on a leash, the dynamism throws off the shackles of the artist’s tradition by presenting us with an abrupt, random view that you normally see shrunken in the background of a peaceful impression scene. The true star in this painting is the concept of movement. The repletion of the dog's legs, leash, ears, and floppy tail creates a feeling of forwarding motion that is almost dizzying.

Reference-

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFPIP9NxU30