Futurism Cubism Van_Gogh Rauschenberg

Critique of F.T. Martinetti's "The Futurist Manifesto"
By: Tarek Fahmy

F.T. Martinetti, "The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism", 1908-1909

Martinetti's essay is charged with tremendous energy and is cleverly written. I couldn't help but read it fast and loud. I even raised my voice where there was an exclamation point and paused where there was a dash, sort of like rehearsing for a play. At the risk of sounding corny, the melodramatic essay adrenalized my being.

Martinetti's main idea is to forget the past and be immersed in the present. He feels that art and life, in general, dwell in the past. Further, he feels that the present is always in the shadows of the past and Futurism is intended to reverse that and cast the shadow on the past. That is why he adamantly accepts, glorifies, and personifies the machine and the modern era. He wants to legitimize it and make the masses accept it and face it.

"Greedy stations devouring smoking serpents; factories hanging in the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges like giant gymnasts stepping over sunny rivers...; large breasted locomotives; slippery flight of airplanes whose propellers have flag like flutterings and applause of enthusiastic crowds." (Futurist Manifesto, Martinetti.)

His use of imagery is awesome!
I took this quote out of the manifesto because it clearly shows that Martinetti is accepting the post-industrial scenery. It also seems like he is saying that this is the new environment. Further, this environment could be looked at and dissected like the old (nature, etc...).
The artist has to learn to accept it and deal with it like Cezanne dealt with his skies and mountains.
He emphasizes speed because it is synonymous with the modern, electrical, and machine oriented life. All of this modernity was new to Martinetti and his followers and they wanted to try to tackle it and dissect it artistically.

"Lets give ourselves up to the unknown, not out of desperation but to plumb the deep pits of the absurd." (Futurist Manifesto, Martinetti.)

"The doors of life must be broken to test the hinges and the doors." (Futurist Manifesto, Martinetti.)

The early 1900s must have been an exciting time since technology, electricity, and automobiles were becoming part of daily life. People probably did not know what to make of these innovations intellectually and philosophically. The Futurists were merely saying that the first step is to let go of the past and be present. Absorb the electric lights with your retinas and feel the wind against your face out of the window of an automobile. Face technology and deal with it!

There was a part in his essay that reminded me of "Crash", a novel by J.G. Ballard. In Crash, Ballard fetishes the wounded automobile (car accidents). There was a character in the novel that craved a union of blood, semen, and engine coolant in a head on collision with Elizabeth Taylor.
"When I got out from under the upturned car- torn, filthy, and stinking- I felt the red hot iron of joy pass over my heart." (Crash, J.G. Ballard)

"The machine emerged slowly, shedding at the bottom like scales its heavy bottom so sound, and its soft upholstery so comfortable. They thought it was dead my fine shark, but the stroke of my hand was enough to restore it to life." (Futurist Manifesto, Martinetti.)
I definitely sense sexual overtones. Their is also a masturbatory/sexual reference when Martinetti's hand stroke revived the car. In short, he personifies the car and then sexualizes it. Like I mentioned before his excitement is completely understandable. I could imagine him walking around Times Square days on end without succumbing to fatigue or needing nourishment. Neon will act as his fuel.

"Mythology and the mystic ideal are finally overcome." (Futurist Manifesto, Martinetti.)

Seemingly ambitious, seemingly arrogant, and seemingly self confident is how I would describe Martinetti. He wants to literally burry the past to make room for the present/future.

"Museums, cemeteries!...Identical truly, in the sinister promiscuousness of so many objects unknown to each other" (Futurist Manifesto, Martinetti.)

It seems like he intentionally wants to shock people. I love his metaphors especially the quote above. It is so obvious in that cemeteries can be compared to life, museums, etc..., but, it's ingenious.

Martinetti wants art to resemble technology in it's competition and fast evolution. He even accepts and demands his downfall stating that it should be a natural progression of art.

I love his last paragraph because it is so IN YOUR FACE; he doesn't seem to let up. He seems to admit that the past is embedded in us but he is still asserting his melodramatic but defiant stance and his irrationally self proclaimed independence.

"Erect on the pinnacle of the world we hurl forth once more our defiance to the stars." (Futurist Manifesto, Martinetti.)

Futurism Cubism Van_Gogh Rauschenberg

Umberto Boccioni. 1910.
"The City Rises". Oil on canvas.
Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund

Boccioni's plastic dynamism, unlike the techniques of other members of the Futurist group, does not depend on an oversimplified optical device (such as the persist-ence of images on the retina) to suggest a sense of move-ment by repeating certain combined contours. Exper-imental physics do not lie at the origin of Boccioni's art, but rather the philosophy of Bergson and hints of Nietzschean vitalism. Boccioni's work seeks to express in heroic terms the artist's state of mind; in a fluid and constantly self-renewing continuity the contents of mem-ory coexist with the fact of sensation - a "synthesis of what one remembers and what one sees," not in a mechanical and accumulative sequence of time, but in an intuitive leap that becomes itself in the act of creation

Umberto Boccioni
"Unique Forms of Cintinuity in Space".
Museum of Modern Art.
1913.

Luigi Russolo (Italian, 1885-1947), "Dynamism of an Automobile ",oil on canvas , 106 x 140 cm, Georges Pompidou Center, Paris. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>>