Futurism

Another important art movement that emerged at the turn of the 20th century was Futurism, which originated in Italy. It emphasized speed, technology, youth, and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Committed to the new, the Futurists wished to destroy older forms of culture and to demonstrate the beauty of modern life. Although the movement did foster some architecture, most of its adherents were artists who worked in traditional media such as painting and sculpture, and in an eclectic range of styles inspired by Post-Impressionism. The Futurists were fascinated by the problems of representing modern experience, and strived to have their paintings evoke all kinds of sensations—and not merely those visible to the eye. They were also captivated by new visual technology, in particular chrono-photography, which was an important influence on their approach to showing movement in painting, encouraging an abstract art with rhythmic, pulsating qualities. Unlike many other modern art movements, Futurism wasn't immediately identified with a distinctive style. Instead its adherents worked in an eclectic manner, borrowing from various aspects of Post-Impressionism, including Symbolism and Divisionism. It wasn't until 1911 that a distinctive Futurist style emerged, and then it was a product of Cubist influence.

Futurism was founded in Milan in 1909 by by the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. Marinetti expressed a passionate loathing for everything old, especially political and artistic tradition (he even rejected pasta in his Manifesto of Futurist Cooking). "We want no part of it, the past," he wrote, "we the young and strong Futurists!" The movement's key figures were Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini, and Carlo Carrà.

The Futurists' enthusiasm for modernity and the machine ultimately led them to celebrate the arrival of WWI. By its end the group was largely spent as an important avant-garde, though it continued through the 1920s, and, during that time several of its members went on to embrace Fascism.

The City Rises (1910) by Boccioni

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

Simultaneous Visions (1912) by Boccioni