Futurism Art Movement – Characteristics

How to identify Futurist art (1908-1918)?

Note: This page lists two phases of Futurism. The first and most important lasted from 1908 to 1918. The second was from 1929 to 1944.

1. Objects captured in motion, represented with repeated parallel lines and spirals to convey dynamism. In fact, repetition, blurring and lines of force, which are used to this day as techniques to convey a sense of movement, were conceived by the Futurists. The two paintings below are among the earliest in history to use such force lines to depict energy and motion.

Futurist art alternated between semi-abstract or completely abstract, i.e. some representations are deconstructed into geometric forms, influenced by Cubism, that the viewer could barely comprehend them.

Dynamism of a Car by Luigi Russolo (1913)

Abstract Speed – The Car has Passed by Giacomo Balla (1913)
The artist presents above a sublime fusion of blue sky, green landscape and pink exhaust fumes in an image of a car that had already passed.

2. One object in particular was of great fascination for the Futurists, that is a roaring car. They considered it the ultimate symbol of technological progress and modern innovation:

Velocity Of An Automobile by Giacomo Balla (1913)

3. Besides speeding cars, look for paintings glorifying steamships, trains, steel towers and urban construction.

Armored Train in Action by Gino Severini (1915)

This is one of the most iconic Futurist paintings. It combines most elements that distinguished the art movement. We could even count them: Glorification of war – check. Celebrating speed and momentum – of course. Celebration of modern technology and industrialization – check. An aerial view – absolutely! Machinery’s dominance over nature – check. In brief, it’s an Italian military train piercing through the countryside. It’s filled with soldiers aiming their rifles in the same direction. Smoke from their guns and the cannon eclipses the green landscape. The soldiers are faceless, as if the artist wants to say these men do not matter as individuals, their military mission is all that matters. The light blue or dark grey is the color of metal, the body of the train (a strong symbol of industrialization). Note the Cubist influence in the use of multiple perspectives simultaneously. Severini created this artwork in 1915 when WWI in Europe was in full swing. Seeing this gorgeous, colorful masterpiece, you could almost forget about the true reality of WWI: the rat-infested trenches and the rotting, abandoned dead soldiers.

States of Mind I: The Farewells by Umberto Boccioni (1911)

In this painting, we could see a train crowded with passengers. The figures are green and are almost fused with the train and its smoke. Everything is in motion, the train, its steam and the passengers. A few items are stationary though like the number of the train station and the oil tower in the background.

The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli by Carlo Carrà (1911)

Angelo Galli is an Italian anarchist who was killed in 1904 by police during a general strike. To prevent the funeral from turning into an anti-government parade, officials refused the entry of mourning anarchists into the cemetery. The mourners resisted, then a violent scuffle erupted between them and the police. The artist wanted to share, what he considered, a heroic moment with his viewers. The scene shows a chaotic and brutal fusion of police mounted on horseback and angry mourners. Both sides are armed, clubs and lances are in their hands. Galli’s anarchist supporters are dressed in their typical black and waving black flags. Light emanates from both the sun and the red coffin in a symbolic gesture. The clashes are so violent that the coffin seems as if it could fall off the shoulders of pallbearers at any moment.

4. Look for paintings celebrating industrial landscapes and modernity

Skyscrapers and Tunnel by Fortunato Depero (1930)

The City Rises by Umberto Boccioni (1910)

The artist shows a modern city rising. There’s a major building in construction in the background. In the foreground, we see the workers, some of whom are trying to overpower a horse. The whole scene is in motion. All the painting’s subjects are blurred and fused together to create a sense of dynamism.

Brooklyn Bridge by Joseph Stella (1919)

When the Italian artist Joseph Stella arrived in New York, he was fascinated by the Brooklyn Bridge. Like fellow Futurists, he had an optimistic attitude towards modern life. He used the bridge as an industrial symbol for American progress and technical superiority. The painting is almost spiritual with no humans to find. The entire structure seems fractured and light is emanating from glass-like parts to resemble stained glass of an old cathedral. It’s as if these structures are the new shrines which people should visit and regard with awe.

5. Unlike Impressionist artists, the Futurists did not admire natural light. The Futurists sang the praises–literally, as in the founder’s prose–of artificial light. Electrified city lighting, the street lamp, was a new and unmistakable symbol of technological progress.

Street Light by Giacomo Balla (1910)

Aeropittura (Aeropainting): The Second Wave of Futurism

1. Before Futurism completely disappeared, it made a comeback that was no longer about automobilism but aeromobilism, i.e. they replaced their fetish of a roaring car with a soaring airplane. That second phase lasted from 1929 to 1944, the year Marinetti, the Futurist ringleader, died. The paintings depict cinematic views of airplanes and aerial combat, both representing a technology that was a great source of national pride in Italy. Note, biplanes feature heavily in aeropittura (aerial painting) as well as the cityscape of Rome. The Futurists, and their fascist allies, yearned for the greatness of ancient Rome while dreaming of a modern, industrialized Italy .

Flying Over the Coliseum in a Spiral by Tato (Guglielmo Sansoni) (1930)

This painting shows a bird’s eye view of a world in motion. The airplane flying over the Coliseum is meant to associate modern Italy with its ancient past. In other paintings, artists went further by playing along with the Fascist government and associating its leadership with the Roman empire. (View below Mussolini the Aviator by Alfredo Gauro Ambrosi).

2. Look for paintings of dizzying, nose-dive views of the city. The aviator in these artworks is shown as a great hero.

Before the Parachute Opens by Tullio Crali (1939))

A heroic portrayal of a lone parachute soldier plummeting fast towards to the ground.

Nose Dive on the City by Tullio Crali (1939)

Upside Down Loop (Death Loop) by Tullio Crali (1938)

The painter decided not to depict the pilot in this breath-catching painting. He chose to put you in the pilot’s place during an aerobatic maneuver. What we see is an upside down view of Rome from the cockpit.

3. A powerful theme of Aeropittura, and a favorite subject of Futurists towards the end of their art movement, was the portrayal of the Italian Fascist leader, Benito Mussolini, in quasi-religious fashion. They combined his intimidating face with aerial landscapes of Italy to portray him in an eternal and invincible image.

Mussolini the Aviator by Alfredo Gauro Ambrosi (1930)

A propagandistic painting depicting Mussolini’s profile projected on the great city of Rome.

Portrait of Il Duce by Gerardo Dottori (1933)

The portrait of the Fascist leader is rising out of the Italian landscape. Biplanes surround his portrait in a semi-religious symbol of protection and absolute power.

How Futurist art got its name? and where?

Futurism was first conceived as a philosophy then adopted in art. The ideas were laid out by Italian writer and poet, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in his “Manifesto of Futurism” in 1909. Because Paris was the wellspring of most artistic movements, he chose the front-page of the French newspaper Le Figaro to publish his manifesto. It was a moment in history, early last century, where there was a dominant sense of optimism towards technology and the future. He wrote that we should embrace a new way of life, endorse modernity in all its forms; speed, violence and machinery. He praised automobiles, trains and planes. When Marinetti wrote his manifesto in 1909, his ideas resonated among young men eager to modernize Italy.

What gave rise to Futurist art?

Italian cities at the late 1800s were just destinations on what was dubbed the Grand Tour, which was a tour and a pilgrimage for the British elite since the end of the 18th century. They went on such tours to learn about Western civilization. A small group of Italian men were waking up to the fact that most Western countries were enjoying the products of industrialization while their budding nation still lives in agrarian poverty. That prompted them to rise up as “Futurists” who rejected the past, archaeology, the Roman empire and their own history. They looked forward to a technologically superior nation who’s never hesitant to wage wars. Although it remained largely an Italian movement, some artists around Europe joined it.

In today’s culture, there exists a dangerous trifecta of youth, violence and technology. That element in our culture could be traced all the way back to this artistic and social movement which began in Italy. Marinetti expressed at the beginning of his founding manifesto his desire to “sing about the love of danger.”

It was an era long before technology was used to kill and maim millions of people, before the nuclear bomb and the industrious, incinerating gas chambers. Today we understand technology could be a double sword, a blessing and a curse. But at the beginning of the 20th century, many believed that technology could only improve life for all humans. Think of trains bringing villages closer. Or the telegraph making communication across continents happen in a few minutes rather than weeks of mail in delivery by horse-drawn carriages. There was a time when electricity was cool! It’s hard to imagine how these young rich men felt while driving cars before there were even speed limits. The Futurists were so excited about technology that one of them, that is Giacomo Balla, among their greatest artists, called his daughters Elica [Propeller] and Luce [Light].

One major source of inspiration for Futurist art was the relatively new medium of photography. Artists had a complicated view of photography. Some saw it as a threat and indeed some genres of art disappeared such as the traditional portrait. However many artists were inspired to emulate it, learn from it and capture in paintings what could never be captured in photographs. For centuries, it was indisputable that a shape should not be repeated or multiplied in a painting. With the advent of photography, and upon studying the works of one scientific photographer, Étienne-Jules Marey, that changed. Marey took photos of animals and humans in motion. It was obvious in chronophotography that motion appears as shape multiplication. That inspired one of the earliest and most important Futurist artworks: Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash by the Italian Giacomo Balla (view below). The influence of photography could also be seen in their so called aerial paintings.

The art movement disintegrated when its ardent followers finally got what they wished for: War. WWI dispersed them. Umberto Boccioni, one of the best known Futurist artists, died during the war. The cruel irony is that his death was not a heroic one during a battle, but as a result of a fall off a horse while training.

Ultimately the avant-garde movement of Futurism was to be seen, in a smaller scale, in film and music. Ballet Mécanique is considered one of the best examples of experimental cinema that embodied Futurist ideals. One of the best known musical pieces is Pacific 231 by Arthur Honegger. The composer even incorporated sounds of trains.

Rebels of a new generation

A generation before the Futurists, there was a widespread anxiety about the fast-industrializing world of Europe. Close to the end of the 19th century, many young people suffered from an anxiety and disillusionment about life in their cities. That transfigured into morbid art movements like Symbolism and Romanticism. Futurism arrived with a new attitude to modernity. Unlike their predecessors, the Futurists saw the industrial city not as a hostile place. They embraced modernity and admired it. That is the reason you won’t see among the works of Futurists any religious, historical, mythological or romantic paintings. You won’t find nude, especially female, Futurist paintings either, which is not surprising seeing that this artistic movement had a masculine vein running through it. The Symbolists and the Romantics were often targets of Marinetti’s derision in his writings. Also, he publicly condemned the “English art” (the Pre-Raphaelites).

The one art movement that had the greatest influence on Futurism was Cubism. The common elements are obvious in Futurist paintings. However, the Futurists became a separate movement since their main concern, unlike the Cubists, was to show dynamism—objects in motion.

If you have’t seen many mentions of Futurist art in pop culture as is the case with Picasso’s Cubist art or Monet’s Impressionist works, there is a fine explanation. Most art movements start with controversy then eventually become mainstream. However this one in particular never cleared its name. If the artists’ embrace of violence and war was not enough, some of their paintings before the movement disappeared could be considered mere fascist propaganda. It should be noted that not all Futurists were supporters of fascism, or at least officially affiliated with them. Despite their support of fascism and misogyny, the movement’s aesthetics occasionally brings inspiration to designers as in the case of this BMW Z4 Coupe which seems to be moving “even when standing still”!