The Futurist Manifesto

Published in the French newspaper Le Figaro on Feb. 20th, 1909, by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian poet

and writer, the Futurist Manifesto was one of the first documents to celebrate the automobile as an object of beauty and to cite speed and acceleration as aesthetic elements. “We declare that the splendour of the world

has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed,” Marinetti proclaimed.

“A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath … a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is

more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace,” he continued in the most memorable passage.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

The Futurist Manifesto initiated an artistic philosophy, Futurism, that was a rejection of the

past, and a celebration of speed, machinery, violence, youth and industry; it was also an

advocation of the modernization and cultural rejuvenation of Italy.

The following are some of the theses in the Futurist Manifesto:

● 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.

● 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 bonnet 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.

● 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.

Machine + War - Woman = Futurism

Futurism became an international art movement since then. It was a refreshing contrast to the weepy sentimentalism of Romanticism. The

Futurists loved speed, noise, machines, pollution, and cities; they embraced the exciting new world.

The Futurist manifestos (on painting, sculpture, music) show us an alternative view to fearing and

attacking technology.

The Manifesto of Futurist Painters

The cry of rebellion which we utter associates our ideals with those of the Futurist poets. These

ideals were not invented by some aesthetic clique. They are an expression of a violent desire which boils in the veins of every creative artist today.We are sickened by the foul laziness of artists,

who, ever since the sixteenth century, have endlessly exploited the glories of the ancient Romans. These are our final conclusions:

With our enthusiastic adherence to Futurism, we will:

● Destroy the cult of the past, the obsession with the ancients, pedantry and academic formalism.

● Totally invalidate all kinds of imitation. ● Elevate all attempts at originality, however

daring, however violent. ● Regard art critics as useless and dangerous.● Rebel against the tyranny of words: “Harmony”

and “good taste”.● Sweep the whole field of art clean of all themes

and subjects which have been used in the past.

Some Futurist painters:

Umberto Boccioni(1910)

Ugo Gianattasio(1920)

Tullio Crali (1932)

The dead shall be buried in the earth’s deepest bowels! The threshold of the future will be swept

free of mummies! Make room for youth, for violence, for daring!

Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture

● The aim of sculpture is the abstract reconstruction of the planes and volumes which determine form, not their figurative value.

● Sculpture cannot make its goal the episodic reconstruction of reality.

● It is necessary to destroy the pretended nobility of marble and bronze, and to deny squarely that one must use a single material for a sculptural ensemble. The sculptor can use twenty different materials, or even more, in a single work, provided that the plastic emotion requires it. Here is a modest sample of these materials: glass, wood, cardboard, cement, iron, horsehair, leather, cloth, mirrors, electric lights, etc.

● It is necessary to proclaim loudly that in the intersection of the planes of a book and the angles of a table, in the straight lines of a match, in the frame of a window, there is more truth than in all the tangle of muscles, the breasts and thighs of heroes and Venuses which enrapture the incurable stupidity of contemporary sculptors.

● One must destroy the systematic use of the nude and the traditional concept of the statue and the monument.

Some Futurist sculptors:

Otakar Švec (1924)

Umberto Boccioni (1913)

Giacomo Balla(1915)

The Manifesto of Futurist Musicians

I appeal to the young. Only they should listen, and only they can understand what I have to say.

Some people are born old, spectres of the past. To them no words or ideas, but a single injunction:

the end. I, who repudiate the title of Maestro as a stigma of

mediocrity and ignorance, hereby confirm my enthusiastic adhesion to Futurism, offering to the

young, the bold and the reckless these my irrevocable conclusions:

● To convince young composers to desert schools, conservatories and musical academies, and to consider free study as the only means of regeneration.

● To be independent and resolutely opposed to the criteria of conservatory professors and to those of the debased public.

● To abstain from participating in any competition with the customary closed envelopes and related admission charges, unmasking the incompetence of juries, which are generally composed of fools and impotents.

● To provoke in the public an ever-growing hostility towards the exhumation of old works which prevents the appearance of innovators, to encourage everything in music that appears original and revolutionary.

Luigi Russolo working on his “noise experimental music”

Futurist Music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYPXAo1cOA4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcHJySm7ZO0

The legacy of the Futurists lies less in their own art than in the inspiration they provided designers.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjgFYQMWtqo

Compose a futurist poem using some of the vocabulary below or related vocabulary:

● Speed ● Acceleration● Car● Motorbike● Machinery● Violence● Youth● Industry

● Danger● Courage● Audacity● Aggresive● To destroy● Cowardice● Death● Reckless

Fascist Manifesto

The Manifesto of the Italian Fasci of Combat , commonly known as the Fascist Manifesto, was the initial declaration of the political stance of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento ("Italian League of

Combat"), the movement founded in Milan by Benito Mussolini in 1919 and an early exponent of

Fascism.

Benito Mussolini

The Fascist Manifesto was written by national syndicalist Alceste De Ambris and Futurist

movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

It has recently been the 100th anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto

The Futurists celebrated speed and power, but they had a short run: World War I soon gave culture more speed and power than anyone

wanted. Several Futurists ended up as disgruntled fascists.

The First World War centenary is the centenary of World War One which starts in 2014 and will last

until 2018.

Participating countries● Australia ● Belgium● Bosnia and Herzegovina● Denmark● France● New Zealand● Kenya● Turkey● United Kingdom

From 2014 to 2018, across the world, nations, communities and individuals of all ages will come together to mark, commemorate and remember

the lives of those who lived, fought and died in the First World War.

Write three sentences with facts you know about nazism and facism, or with your own opinion

about them.

What do you know about the First World War?Write five lines.

Sources:

http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascist_Manifesto

http://www.1914.org/