Catarina Lassi

HISTORY OF ART - FUTURISM



If the era of globalization, in which we live today, will foster new cultural movements and new milestones in history, an almost certainty, it is also true that the seeds of these milestones are already in place, yet unidentifiable. The Twentieth Century has left a mark for posterity: Futurism. Many have written and will write on forefront of this "global" movement that, although revolutionary, was comprehensive of thoughts, men and nations. Without fear of false rhetoric and intellectual forms, Futurism "is" the movement of the last Century, which is misrepresented or anticipated by many others, sometimes wrongly considered "above" such forms as Cubism, again without fear I say to those born in Europe or elsewhere since the end of World War II to the present day, such as Pop Art. Futurism is about anticipation, revolution, and transgression, and only those who are willing to get rid of the ideological and psychological barriers can understand that this revolution was born of and supported in an ideological context that many call "right," of course without having the slightest idea of what they are talking about. The artistic and literary creativity of Futurism (the best of "Futurists") crown to freedom and happiness of the common man, the desire to search and curiosity of the world to come… Stefano de Rosa writes, - "None, between the current historical vanguard of the '900, has managed to raise as Futurism, a critical literature as comprehensive and shaken by the ignited frenzy of controversy." Perhaps this is because, as noted by Maurizio Calvesi, "Futurism converts the matter of decadent life as art, a bold proposal of art as a life." Marinettí and Futurism set up the eternal timeliness of a rich and alive movement so as to create a communication between art and life. For this reason, "there were no events in the art of leading after the informal, for which it would not be possible to find a precedent, more or less direct, more or less crude, in the futurism poetic and in various forms, by the sustained, transposition of the border: the Neo-Dadaism, the Pop Art, art and kinetic scheduled, the Mec Art, the environmental Art, the Art Poor: but the happening, right theatre and cinema, to a phenomenon that emerged decisively from the aesthetics sphere, yet it has been very concerned, as one of the opposition student and youth." And I just think that I have no more to say about Futurism, but many other historical and intellectuals, better and worse, may do so. For my part, a brief history of Futurism, its connection and influence in Portugal, are my tribute to the Revolutionary Futurists, who only found in pairs in the Renaissance or Enlightenment as driving forces of Humanity.
	MFL - JEAS



HISTORY OF ART - MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM

The Manifesto of Futurism, responsibility of the leader of the Futuristic Movement , Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, launched in the newspaper Le Figaro in Paris at February 1909, comes at the height of a deep change which could be felt on the horizon in the started of XX Century, and proposes as the beginning of an articulated and complex political and cultural itinerary.



We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness. Courage, audacity, and revolt will be essential elements of our poetry. Up to now literature has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep. We intend to exalt aggresive action, a feverish insomnia, the racer’s stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap. We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. We want to hymn the man at the wheel, who hurls the lance of his spirit across the Earth, along the circle of its orbit. The poet must spend himself with ardor, splendor, and generosity, to swell the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements. Except in struggle, there is no more beauty. No work without an aggressive character can be a masterpiece. Poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man. We stand on the last promontory of the centuries!... Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed. We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice. We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot; we will sing of the multicolored, polyphonic tides of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents; factories hung on clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke; bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with a glitter of knives; adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon; deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing; and the sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.

Zatkova - Portrait of Marinetti