How Futurism got its name and what gave rise to it?

How Futurist art got its name? and where?

Futurism was first conceived as a philosophy then adopted in art. The ideas were laid out by Italian writer and poet, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in his “Manifesto of Futurism” in 1909. Because Paris was the wellspring of most artistic movements, he chose the front-page of the French newspaper Le Figaro to publish his manifesto. It was a moment in history, early last century, where there was a dominant sense of optimism towards technology and the future. He wrote that we should embrace a new way of life, endorse modernity in all its forms; speed, violence and machinery. He praised automobiles, trains and planes. When Marinetti wrote his manifesto in 1909, his ideas resonated among young men eager to modernize Italy.

What gave rise to Futurist art?

Italian cities at the late 1800s were just destinations on what was dubbed the Grand Tour, which was a tour and a pilgrimage for the British elite since the end of the 18th century. They went on such tours to learn about Western civilization. A small group of Italian men were waking up to the fact that most Western countries were enjoying the products of industrialization while their budding nation still lives in agrarian poverty. That prompted them to rise up as “Futurists” who rejected the past, archaeology, the Roman empire and their own history. They looked forward to a technologically superior nation who’s never hesitant to wage wars. Although it remained largely an Italian movement, some artists around Europe joined it.

In today’s culture, there exists a dangerous trifecta of youth, violence and technology. That element in our culture could be traced all the way back to this artistic and social movement which began in Italy. Marinetti expressed at the beginning of his founding manifesto his desire to “sing about the love of danger.”

It was an era long before technology was used to kill and maim millions of people, before the nuclear bomb and the industrious, incinerating gas chambers. Today we understand technology could be a double sword, a blessing and a curse. But at the beginning of the 20th century, many believed that technology could only improve life for all humans. Think of trains bringing villages closer. Or the telegraph making communication across continents happen in a few minutes rather than weeks of mail in delivery by horse-drawn carriages. There was a time when electricity was cool! It’s hard to imagine how these young rich men felt while driving cars before there were even speed limits. The Futurists were so excited about technology that one of them, that is Giacomo Balla, among their greatest artists, called his daughters Elica [Propeller] and Luce [Light].

One major source of inspiration for Futurist art was the relatively new medium of photography. Artists had a complicated view of photography. Some saw it as a threat and indeed some genres of art disappeared such as the traditional portrait. However many artists were inspired to emulate it, learn from it and capture in paintings what could never be captured in photographs. For centuries, it was indisputable that a shape should not be repeated or multiplied in a painting. With the advent of photography, and upon studying the works of one scientific photographer, Étienne-Jules Marey, that changed. Marey took photos of animals and humans in motion. It was obvious in chronophotography that motion appears as shape multiplication. That inspired one of the earliest and most important Futurist artworks: Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash by the Italian Giacomo Balla (view below). The influence of photography could also be seen in their so called aerial paintings.

Photograph of a white horse in motion (1886) by Étienne-Jules Marey

Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) by Giacomo Balla

The art movement disintegrated when its ardent followers finally got what they wished for: War. WWI dispersed them. Umberto Boccioni, one of the best known Futurist artists, died during the war. The cruel irony is that his death was not a heroic one during a battle, but as a result of a fall off a horse while training.

Ultimately the avant-garde movement of Futurism was to be seen, in a smaller scale, in film and music. Ballet Mécanique is considered one of the best examples of experimental cinema that embodied Futurist ideals. One of the best known musical pieces is Pacific 231 by Arthur Honegger. The composer even incorporated sounds of trains.