Italian Futurism

6 Pages 1548 Words

Futurism is a movement that has been inspirational to me and has provided motivation to many other graphic designers and movements. “Shock, in addition to opening people’s eyes, was part of the Futurist programme” Being such a versatile group the works of the Futurists can be seen in numerous art genres. The paintings and typographical revelations are most impressive to me not only were they revolutionary at the time but I think that contemporary eyes are able to see deeper intentions and respect the impact that it had on art.
The type of paintings that came out of this movement are visually stimulating to look at I admire the way that the Futurists were able to control the dimensions of a static picture. Borrowing from styles such as Cubism the Futurists manipulated brush strokes and formal elements such as line, balance and colour to portray images that had complex mechanical aesthetics and energetic infusions of bright colour combinations. They also were the founders of typographical innovations that were avant-garde at the time. The art of Marinetti’s “words-in-freedom” led to new forms in visual communication with type, graphics and collage being used in conjunction to create picture poems later known as concrete poetry. The new approach to typography in design was embraced by the early literary works of Dadaism and stimulated the New typography movement.
The Movement

After Cubism a new movement called Futurism emerged in Italy. The movement exploded onto the European cultural scene on 20 February 1909 when Filippo Marinetti the founder and only member at this time aggressively announced the ‘Manifesto of Futurism’ and it was published on the front page of the French newspaper Le Figaro. The manifesto not only celebrated the enthusiasm of the recently industrialized streets of Milan strongly went against conventional art ethics of the past "We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind......