Buying Futurism
Paintings
A 20th century art movement with its’ roots in Italian and
Russian beginnings, Futurism is said to have largely began with
the writing of a 1907 essay on music by the Italian composer
Ferruccio Busoni, and explored every medium of art to convey
its’ meanings. The Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
was the first to produce an article in which was summed up the
major principles that became the Manifesto of Futurism in
1909. It included the passionate loathing of ideas from
the past, and with that enmity of political and artistic
traditions, espoused a love for speed and technology.
The philosophy of Futurism regarded the car, the plane, and
the industrial town as legendary of the technological triumph
of mankind over nature. With Marinetti at the helm, a few
artists of the time introduced the tenets of the philosophy to
the visual arts, and represented the movement in its’ first
phase in 1910. The Russian Futurists were fascinated with
dynamism and the restlessness of modern urban life,
purposefully seeking to provoke controversy and attract
attention to their works through insulting reviews of the
static art of the past, and the circle of Russian Futurists
were predominantly literary as opposed to being overtly
artistic.
Cubo-Futurism was a school of Russian Futurism formulated in
1913, and many of the works incorporated Cubism’s usage of
angular forms combined with the Futurist predisposition for
dynamism. The Futurist painter Kazimir Malevich was the
artist to develop the style, but dismissed it for the inception
of the artistic style known as Suprematism, that focused upon
the fundamental geometric shapes as a form of non-objective
art. Suprematism grew around Malevich, with most
prominent works being produced between 1915 and 1918, but the
movement had halted for the most part by 1934 in Stalinist
Russia.
Though at one point, those Russian poets and artists that
considered themselves Futurists had collaborated on works such
a Futurist opera, but the Russian movement broke down from
persecution for their belief in free thought with the start of
the Stalinist age. Italian Futurists were strongly linked
with the early fascists in the hope for modernizing the society
and economy in the 1920s through to the 1930s, and Marinetti
founded the Futurist Political Party in early 1918, which was
later absorbed into Benito Mussolini’s National Fascist
Party.
As tensions grew within the various artistic faces that
considered themselves Futurists, many Futurists became
associated with fascism which later translated into Futurist
architecture being born, and interesting examples of this style
can be found today even though many Futurist architects were at
odds in the fascist taste for Roman imperial patterns.
Futurism has even influenced many other 20th century art
movements such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Art Deco
styles. Futurism as a movement is considered extinct for
the most part with the death of Marinetti in 1944.
As Futurism gave way to the actual future of things, the
ideals of the artistic movement have remained significant in
Western culture through the expressions of the commercial
cinema and culture, and can even be as an influence in modern
Japanese anime and cinema. The Cyberpunk genre of films
and books owe much to the Futurist tenets, and the movement has
even spawned Neo-Futurism, a style of theatre at utilizes on
Futurism’s focuses to create a new form of theatre. Much
of Futurism’s inspiration came from the previous movement of
Cubism, that involved such famed artists as Pablo Picasso and
Paul Cezanne, and created much of the basis for Futurism
through its’ philosophy.
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