Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2014 Realism to Surrealism: European art and culture 1848-1936
The God of Speed: Futurism and the avant-garde
Dr Andrew Yip, Art Gallery of NSW
27/28 August 2014
Lecture summary:
In 1909 the Italian poet, playboy, rabble-rouser and fascist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published his treatise for the machine age in the pages of Le Figaro, France’s most popular newspaper. Titled The Futurist Manifesto, it was a clarion call to artists, poets, writers and politicians to abolish the traditions of Italian life and dismantle the institutions of culture to worship at the feet of a new god – the god of speed. This was the first art movement to embrace to dynamics of mass media and its influence was profound, affecting not only the visual arts, but architecture, literature, performance, cuisine (!) and politics. This lecture examines the origins of Futurism in the visual arts and traces their aesthetic developments from Italian divisionism to radical abstraction.
Slide list: 1. *Umberto Boccioni Unique forms of continuity in space 1913 2. Winged victory of Samothrace 200BCE 3. Giovanni Segantini Love at the Fountain of Life 1896 4. Giovanni Segantini Vanitas 1897 5. Giacomo Balla Street light 1909 6. Emilio Longini The orator of the strike 1890. 7. Giacomo Balla The worker’s day 1904 8. Umberto Boccioni Riot in the Galleria 1909 9. *Umberto Boccioni The city rises 1910 10. Carlo Carra The funeral of the anarchist Galli 1910 11. Luigi Russolo The Revolt 1911 12. Giacomo Balla Girl running on a balcony 1912 13. *Giacomo Balla Dynamism of a dog on a leash 1912 14. Edweard Muybridge Athlete walking from The human figure in motion 15. E.J. Marey, Chronophotographs from "The Human Body in Action," Scientific American, 1914 16. Marcel Duchamp Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 1912 17. *Giacomo Balla Speeding car 1912 18. Leonardo Study for the adoration of the magi 1481 19. Giacomo Balla Abstract speed and sound 1913 20. Umberto Boccioni Dynamism of a soccer player 1913
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21. Umberto Boccioni Synthesis of human dynamism 913 22. Antonio Sant’Elia La Città Nuova 1914 23. Gino Severini Armored train in action 1915 24. Gino Severini Maternité 1920 25. Carlo Carra Mother and son 1917 26. Giacomo Balla Nuns + landscape 1925 27. Giacomo Balla Form-spirit transformation, 1917 28. Gerardo Dottori Crucifixion 1928 29. Roy de Maistre Crucifixion 1957 30. Gino Severini Sacred heart c1940 31. Nino Vitali Ascension c1930 32. Bruno Tano Winged Madonna 1931 33. Thayaht Divinity 1932 34. Benedetta Mount Tabor 1939 35. Grace Cossington Smith The curve of the bridge 1928-30 36. Frank Hinder Aircraft shadow from searchlight 1945 37. Frank Hinder Bomber crash 1943 38. James Angus Bugatti type 35 2010
Reference:
Gunter Berghaus (ed) (trans. Doug Thompson), Critical writings: F.T. Marinetti, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2006
Massimo Duranti et al, Piety and pragmatism: spiritualism in futurist art, Roma: Gangemi, 2007
Vincent Giroud, Futurism: from avant-garde to memory, Milano: Skira, 2006
Robert Hughes, The shock of the new: art and the century of change, London: Thames and Hudson, 1991
Simonetta Fraquelli et al, Radical light: Italy’s divisionist painters, 1891-1910, London: National Gallery, 2008
Images:
Umberto Boccioni The city rises 1910
Umberto Boccioni Unique forms of continuity in space 1913
Giacomo Balla Dynamism of a dog on a leash 1912
Giacomo Balla Speeding car 1912