FUTURISM, described & explained by the famous Futurist artists and contemporaries, in their quotes
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Futurist painting of Boccioni: The City Rises, 1910 |
Futurism is described here by the famous Futurists and simultaneous artists, in their selected quotes. Futurism was the mainly Italian art movement which goal was to express the new dynamic views and life-experiences in the modern big city, with its characteristic traffic noise and movements, coming from all sides together at once. In human history this was a completely new phenomenon. Moreover the Futurist artists wanted to activate the public into a dynamic watching of their visual arts. You find here selected quotes by Futurists Marinetti, Boccioni, Carra, Severini, Russoli, Balla and by simultaneous artists Modrian, Van Doesburg and Malevich, – the editor.
Filippo Marinetti describes in his
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Filippo Marinetti was founder of Italian Futurism & Italian poet, writer and editor. He started the Futurist art movement as author of the Futurist Manifesto, published in 1908. In 1910 he found his company with other artists – the young painters Boccioni, Carra, Russolo, Severini a. o. – the editor.
- Idealists, workers of thought, unite to show how inspiration and genius walk in step with the progress of the machine, of aircraft, of industry, of trade, of the sciences, of electricity.
* source, of his artist quote , from the famous Futurist Manifesto as foundation of Italian Futurism – review ‘Poesia’, Marinetti 1905; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 78
- Art […] can be nothing but violence, cruelty, and injustice.
* source, of artist quote from the Futurist Manifesto by founder of Italian Futurism ‘Marinetti’ – on English Wikipedia
- ….destroy the museums, the libraries, every type of academy… …the great crowds, shaken by work, by pleasure or by rioting”… …We will glorify war – the world’s only hygiene – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman.
* source, artist quote from the famous Futurist Manifesto by Marinetti, founder of Italian Futurism – on English Wikipedia
- O my brother Futurists! All of you, look at yourselves! … …In the name of that Human Pride we so adore, I proclaim that the hour is nigh when men with broad temples and steel chins will give birth magnificently, with a single trust of their bulging will, to giants with flawless gestures.
* source, his artist quote describes the euphoric character of Futurism – taken from the ‘Preface’ in the novel ‘ Mafraka, le Futuriste’ 1909; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 313, note 15
- While an artist is labouring at his work of art, nothing prevents it from surpassing Dream. As soon as it is finished, the work must be hidden or destroyed, or better still, thrown as a prey to the brutal crowd which will magnify it by killing it with its scorn, and thereby intensify its absurd uselessness. We thus condemn art as finished work, we conceive of it only in its movement, in the state of effort and draft. Art is simply a possibility for absolute conquest. For the artist, to complete is to die.
* source, artist quote from: ‘ Le Premier Manifeste du Futurisme’, taken from his critical edition with facsimile of Marinetti’s original manifesto
- …war is the world’s only form of hygiene.
* source, from “Abstract Painting”, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co.,1964, p. 81
- Time and space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed… …(we will sing of) the vibrant nightly fervor of arsenals and shipyards with violent electric moons; greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumbed serpents… …deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like the hooves of enormous steel horses.
* source: Futurism described by speed, quote is taken from ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism’, Marinetti, ‘Le Figaro’, 20 February 1909, in ‘Futurist Manifestos’, ed. Appolonio , Thames and Hudson, London, p. 22
- We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath – a roaring car that seems to run on grapeshot is more beautiful than The Victory of Samothrace (1910).
* source, Marinetti’s quote from: ‘The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism’, ‘Le Figaro’, 20 February 1909, in ‘Futurist Manifestos’, ed. Appolonio , Thames and Hudson, London
- To the conception of the imperishable, the immortal, we oppose, in art, that of becoming, the perishable, the transitory, and the ephemeral. (these ideas and conceptions, around 1911, are strongly connected to ’élan vitale’ concept of the French philosopher Bergson, teaching in Paris those years, ed.)
* source of the artist quote, from ‘We Abjure Our Most Symbolist Masters, the Last Lovers of the Moon’, Marinetti, “Selected Writings”, Secker & Warburg, Nondon 1972, p. 67
- Art deals with profound and simple moods… …Let us suppose that the artist – in this instance Picabia (Italian artist in those days, ed.) – gets a certain impression by looking at our skyscrapers, our city, our way of life, and that he tries to reproduce it… …he will convey it in plastic ways on the canvas, even though we see neither skyscrapers nor city on it (on the canvas, ed.).
* source, of the quote: an interview in ‘A Paris painter’, H. Hapgood; in ‘Globe and commercial Advertiser, 20 February 1913, p. 8 / 107
- Mondrian is the greatest Futurist painter of the North.
* source, Filippo Marinetti – source of the artist quote, from “Abstract Painting”, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co., 1964, p. 36
- Try to live the war pictorially studying it in all its mechanical forms ( military trains, fortifications, wounded men, ambulances, hospitals, parades, etc.
* source, Filippo Marinetti, artist quote in a letter or remark of Marinetti to Severini, 20 November 1914, quoted in “Futurism”, Tisdall and Bozsolla, Thames and Hudson, 1973, p. 190
- On 11 October 1908, having worked for six years at my international magazine (Poesia, ed.) in an attempt to free the Italian lyrical genius that was under sentence of death from its traditional and commercial fetters, I suddenly felt that articles, poetry and controversies were no longer enough. It was absolutely crucial to switch methods, get out into the streets, lay siege to theatres, and introduce the fisticuff into the artistic struggle. … …My Italian blood raced faster when my lips coined out loud the word FUTURISM.
It was the new formula of Action-Art and a code of mental health. It was a youthful and innovative banner, anti-traditional, optimistic, heroic and dynamic, that had to be hoisted over the ruins of all attachment to the past.
* Filippo Marinetti, his artist quote describes his first inspiration to Futurism as action-art, taken from: ‘Guerra sola igiene del mundo’, Marinetti, Edizione futuriste di Poesia, Milan 1915; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 21
Umberto Boccioni describes in his artist quotes
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UMBERTO BOCCIONI was one of the earliest Italian Futurist artists and a militant member in Futurism. Moreover he was a very passionate and inspirational artist in the Futurist art movement. He wrote many militant art statements, explaining and developing the Futurist ideas in debates with the Cubist artists in Paris very firmly. Boccioni was the leading editor of the ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’ c. 1908
- A time will come when the picture will no longer be enough. Its immobility will become an archaism with the vertiginous movement of human life. The eye of man will perceive colours as feelings within itself. Multiplied colours will not need form to be understood and paintings will be swirling musical compositions of great coloured gases, which, on the scene of a free horizon, will move and electrify the complex soul of a crowd that we cannot yet conceive of.
* Umberto Boccioni, his art quote describes the future character of painting, in becoming an archaic phenomenon, from: his lecture ‘La Pittura Futurista’; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 55
- Your eyes, accustomed to semi-darkness, will soon open to more radiant visions of light. The shadows which we shall paint shall be more luminous than the high-lights of our predecessors, and our pictures, next to those of the museums, will shine like blinding daylight, compared with deepest night. We conclude that painting cannot exist today without divisionism… …Divisionism, for the modern painter, must be an innate complementariness which we declare to be essential and necessary.
* Umberto Boccioni, his statement describes Divisionism as necessarily element for modern painting: ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, Boccocione, Carrà, Russolo, April 1910; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 92
- The gesture which we would reproduce on canvas shall no longer be a fixed moment in universal dynamism. It shall simply be the dynamic sensation itself. Indeed, all things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing… …We would at any price re-enter into life. (in contrast to Cubism, Boccioni’s concepts here are strongly related to the idea of ‘Elan vitale’, the idea of the French philosopher Bergson, ed.) .
* Boccioni’s artist statement on ‘dynamic sensation’, – source: ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, 1912; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 23
- It will be readily admitted that brown tints have never coursed beneath our skin; it will be discovered that yellow shines forth in our flesh, that red blazes, and that green, blue and violet dance upon it with untold charms, voluptuous and caressing.
* Boccioni statement on the future role of colors in painting art: ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo,
- (to erect)… a new altar throbbing with dynamism as pure and exultant as those which were elevated to divine mystery through religious contemplation.
* Umberto Boccioni quote describes future art as religion: in a letter to Nino Barbantini; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger
- Our bodies penetrate the sofas upon which we sit and the sofas penetrate our bodies. The motorbus rushes into the houses which it passes, and in their turn the houses throw themselves upon the bus and are blended with it. (interpenetration of the human and the machine world, fh).
* his artist quote on the mutual penetration of things in Futurist painting, – source: ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, 1912; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p.
- The sixteen people around you in a rolling omnibus are in turn and at the same time one, ten, four, three; they are motionless and they change places; they come and go, bound into the street, are suddenly swallowed up by the sunshine, then come back and sit before you., like persistent symbols of universal vibration. How often have we not seen upon the cheek of the person with whom we are talking the horse which we passes at the end of the street.
* Boccioni’s artist quote on the moving things and people in the urban hectic of the modern city: from the ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, 1912
- How is it possible still to see the human face pink, now that our life, redoubled by noctambulism, has multiplied our perceptions as colourists? The human face is yellow, red, green, blue, violet.
* his artist quote on the modern perception and use of colors in Futurism, – source: ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, 1912
- Who can still believe in the opacity of bodies since our sharpened and modified sensitivity has already penetrated the obscure manifestations of the medium? Why should we forget in our creations the double power of our sight, capable of giving results analogous to those of X-rays?
* his artist quote on ‘sight giving results, comparable with X-rays for futuristic painting art: ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, Boccioni, Carrà, Russolo, 1912
- (the Cubist painters who…, ed.) continued to paint objects motionless, frozen, and all the static aspects of Nature; they worship the traditionalism of Poussin, of Ingres, of Camille Corot, ageing and petrifying their art with an obstinate attachment to the past, which to our eyes remains totally incomprehensible.
* Boccioni’s critical art statement describes the static and classical character of concurrent Cubism in Paris, – source: ‘Les exposants au public’, Boccioni et al.; exh. Cat. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune & Cie February 1912, pp. 2, 3
- …is it indisputable that several aesthetic declarations of our French comrades (of Cubism, ed.) display a sort of masked academicism. Is it not, indeed, a return to the Academy to declare that the subject, in painting, has a perfectly insignificant value?… …To paint from the posing model as an absurdity, and an act of mental cowardice, even if the model be translated upon the picture in linear, spherical and cubic forms…
* his critical art statement on the static and academic character of contemporary Cubism in Paris, – source: ‘Les exposants au public’, Boccioni et al. – exh. Cat. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune & Cie February 1912, pp. 2, 3
- Let us explain again by examples. In painting a person on a balcony, seen from inside the room do not limit the scene to what the square of the window renders visible; we try to render the sum total of visual sensations which the person on the balcony has experienced; the sun-baked throng in the street, the double row of houses which stretch to right and left, the beflowered balconies etc. This implies the simultaneity of the ambient, and, therefore, the dislocation and the dislocation and dismemberment of objects, the scattering and fusion of details, freed from accepted logic and independent from one another. In order to make the spectator live in the center of the picture, as we express it in our manifesto (the ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’, 1910, ed.), the picture must be the synthesis of what one remembers and what one sees. You must render the invisible which stirs lives beyond intervening obstacles, what we have on the right, or the left, or behind us, and not merely the small square of life artificially compressed, as it were, by the wings of a stage set. We have declared in our manifesto that what must be rendered is the dynamic sensation, that is to say, the particular rhythm of each object, its inclination, its movement, or more exactly, its interior force.
* Boccioni’s famous explanation of the simultaneity (like Delanunay also emphasized, as a Cubist, more or less, ed.) of the ambient, and the dislocation and dismemberment of objects in our perception. Source: ‘Les exposants au public’, Boccioni et al.; exh. Cat. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune & Cie February 1912, p. 47
- The simultaneousness of states of mind in the work of art: that is the intoxicating aim of our art… …In the pictorial description of the various states of mind of a leave-taking, perpendicular lines, undulating lines and as it were worn out, clinging here and there to silhouettes of empty bodies, may well express languidness and discouragement. Confused and trepidating lines, either straight or curved, mingled with the outlined hurried gestures of people calling to one another will express a sensation of chaotic excitement. On the other hand, horizontal lines, fleeting, rapid and jerky, brutally cutting in half lost profiles of faces or crumbling and rebounding fragments of landscape, will give the tumultuous feelings of the person going away.
* Boccioni’s artist quote, explaining the simultaneousness of states of mind in the work of Futurist art-works, – source: ‘Les exposants au public’, Boccioni et al.; exh. Cat. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune & Cie February 1912, pp. 4, 9-10, 47, 49
- If we paint the phases of a riot, the crowd bustling with uplifted fists and the noisy onslaughts od cavalry are translated upon the canvas in sheaves of lines corresponding with all the conflicting forces, following the general laws of violence of the picture… …These force-lines must encircle and involve the spectator so that he will an a manner be forced to struggle himself with the persons in the picture.
* Boccioni’s quote on the role of force-lines in Futurist painting, – source: ‘Les exposants au public’, Boccioni et al.; exh. Cat. Galerie Bernheim-Jeune & Cie February 1912, p. 8
- The street enters the house.
* Boccioni’s short quote , describing the modern intention of futurist painting: this quote is the title of one of his paintings he painted in
- I work a lot but don’t seem to finish. That is, I hope what I am doing means something because I don’t know what I am doing (1912, doing sculpture in one of his early attempts, fh). It’s strange and terrible but I feel calm. Today I worked non-stop for six hours on a sculpture and I don’t know what the result is… …Planes upon planes, sections of muscles, of a face and then? And the total effect? Does what I create live? Where will I end up?
* Boccioni’s quote describes his mood during one of his early attempts of creating futurist sculpture: an undated letter to Gino Severini (probably July or August 1912 or November, ed.) ; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008
- (in a letter a few days later to Severini) The commitment I have made is terrible and the plastic means appear and disappear at the moment of implementation (1912, doing sculpture in one of his early attempts, ed.). It’s terrible… …And the chaos of will? What law? It’s terrible… …Then I struggle with sculpture: I work, work and work and I don’t know what I give. Is it interior? Is it exterior? Is it sensation? Is it delirium? Is it brain? Analysis? Synthesis? I don’t know what the f… it is! Forms on forms…confusion….. The Cubists are wrong. Picasso is wrong. The academics are wrong. We’re all a bunch of d…heads.
* Boccioni’s desperate quote in a letter to Severine, on his struggle with futuristic sculpture and the many planes he tries to mix, from an an undated letter to Gino Severini (probably July or August 1912, or November, ed.) ; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger
- ……since our past is the greatest in the world and thus all the more dangerous for our life!… …We must smash, demolish and destroy our traditional harmony, which makes us fall into a ’gracefullness’ created by timid and sentimental Cubs (an attack on Cubism, ed.)
* Umberto Boccioni’s statement describes here the necessity of destroying tradition, ( like also Mondrian stated, admired by the Futurists; – source: his Sculptural Manifesto, 1912; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008
- Get all the information you can about the Cubists, and about Georges Braque and Picasso ( quote of his letter to Futurist art-mate Severini in Paris, ed.). Go to Kahnweilers’ (modern gallery, then – ed.). And if he’s got photos of recent works – produced after I have left -, buy one or two. Bring us (to the Futurists in Italy, ed.) back all the information you can get.
* Umberto Boccioni, source of his artist quote on the Cubists in Paris: a letter to Gino Severini in Paris, Summer 1911; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p.
- With this new tendency (meant is here Orphism, initiated by Delaunay – a former Cubist who wanted to regain the bright colors again for painting, denied by official Cubism, ed.) the Cubism dubbed “impressionism of forms” according to Appolinaire, is entering s final and glorious phase: ….”Orphism, pure painting, simultaneity (introduced by the Futurists already then, ed.)…” ….And there you have it, as many obvious plagiaries of what has formed, from its earliest appearances, the essence of Futurist painting and sculpture… …But we insist on sorting things out. Orphism, let us say it right away, is just an elegant masquerade of the basic principles of Futurist painting. This new trend simply illustrates the profit that our French colleagues managed to driver from our first Futurist exhibition in Paris.
* Umberto Boccioni’s critical art statement on Orphism and simultaneity by Delaunay as a soft kind of Futurism painting -, source: ‘Les futurists plagues en France’, Boccioni, in ‘Lacerba, Florence 1, no. 7, 1 April 1913
- From our very first conversation in the Closerie des Lilas the day after the opening of the first exhibition of Futurist painting (in Paris, February 1912, ed.), I noticed that Fernand Leger was one of the most gifted and promising Cubists… …Léger’s article (‘Les origins de la peinture et sa valeur representative’, Mai 1913, ed.) is a true act of Futurist faith which give us great satisfaction (all the more so since the author is kind enough to mention us)
* quote on the appreciation by the Futurists of the ideas by Fernand Leger in the debate between Futurism and Cubism in Paris – source: ‘Il dinamismo futurista et la pittura francese’, Boccioni; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 118
- …the moving whirlwind of modernity through its crowds, its cars, its telegraph poles, its bare, working-class neighbourhoods, its noises, its squeals, its violence, its cruelty, its cynicism, and its relentless pushiness.
* Boccioni’s quote describes Futurist dynamics in the city, a motif for modern art ‘Pittura scultura futuriste’, Milan 1914
- A horse in movement is not a stationary horse that moves but a horse in a movement, which is to say something other, that should be conceived and expressed as something completely different. It is a question of conceiving objects in movement over and above the motion they carry within themselves.. That is, a question of finding a form which is the expression of this new absolute… …A question of studying the aspects that life has taken on in haste and in consequent simultaneity (in those years the first series of photos were showed of moving horses – ed.).
* Boccioni’s quote describes movement and the perception of a moving horse, – ‘Pittura scultura futuriste’, Milan 1914
- The first painting to appear with an affirmation of simultaneity was mine and had the following title: ‘Simultaneous visions, (he made in 1911, ed). It was exhibited in the gallery Bernheim in Paris, and in the same exhibition my Futurist painter friends also appeared with similar experiments in simultaneity.
* Umberto Boccioni quote describes realized early simultaneity in his painting: Simultaneous visions’, source of his artist quotes on futurist painting art & sculpture: ‘Pittura scultura futuriste’, Milan 1914, p. 458
- We wanted a complementarity of form and colour. So we made a synthesis of analyses of colour (the color-divisionism of Seurat, Signac and Cross) and analyses of form (the form-divisionism of Picasso and Braque).
* his artist quote, on the complementarity of form and colour in futurist painting art‘Dynanisme plastique’ 1914, Boccioni
- All shadows have their light, each shadow being an autonomous unit forming a new individuality with its own chiaroscuro: it is no longer a form that is half-shadow, half-light, as hat hitherto been the case; is it a light-form.
* Umberto Boccioni’s artist quote on the new perception of shadow in futuristic painting, in: ‘Dynanisme plastique’ 1914, Boccioni; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 132
- No one can any longer believe that an object ends where another begins. (his remark referring to early photography of moving horses, ed.) .
* Boccioni’s quote referring to the new photography of moving horses: from his text ‘Dynamism of a Speeding Horse & Houses’, 1914/15
Carlo Carra describes masses and movements
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In 1910 Carra signed, along with Boccioni, Carra and Russolo the famous ‘Manifesto of Futurist Painters’. Carra was fascinated by masses in movements and had a lot of sympathy for the anarchist movement, like his painting ‘The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli’ in 1911. Later he became ultra-nationalist and joined after 1918 even Italian fascism, together with Marinetti, the Futurist founder. After World War 1. Carra began to deal more clearly with form and stillness, along with De Chirico.
- Boccioni, Russolo and I all met in the Porta Vittoria café (in Milan, ed.), close to where we all lived, and we enthusiastically outlined a draft of our appeal (the Manifesto of Futurist Painters, late February, 1910, ed.). The final version was somewhat laborious; we worked on it all day, all three of us and finished it that evening with Marinetti and the help of Decio Cinti, the group’s secretary. (the painters Bonzagni and Romani signed the famous Manifesto too, but withdraw soon; they were replaced by Balla and then Severini – the chief-editor was Boccioni, so many official Manifesto quotes are submitted under Boccioni’s quotes, ed.)
* Carra’s quote describes the start of the Futurist Manifest of painters, source of the quote on the history of the Italian Futurist movement, from : “La mia Vita”, Carrà; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p.
- Stumbling into the midst of anarchists, barely 18 years old, I too started to dream of ‘inevitable changes in human society, free love, etc.
* this art quote describes Carra’s political youth dreams from: “La mia Vita”, Carrà; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 140
- The idea for this picture (‘Uscita dal teatro / Leaving the theatre’, ca 1910, ed.) came to me one winter’s night as I was leaving La Scala. In the foreground there is a snow sweeper with a few couples, men in top hats and elegant ladies. I think that this canvas, which is totally unknown in Italy, is one of the paintings where I best represented the concept that I had the time about my art.
* quote of the artist, describes the inspiration for creating a painting, from: “La mia Vita”, Carra; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 154
- Boccioni and I were swiftly persuaded that with this show in Paris we were staking out all; for a flop would have meant kissing our fine aspirations goodbye. This is why we decided to go to Paris, to see what the art situation there was like. (circa 1911, ed.
* artist quote from ‘L’Éclat de choses ordinaries’, Carrà; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 27
- I was walking along the Boulevard des Italiens (February 1912, during a group exhibition of Futurist painters in Paris, fh), when, as I passed in front of a newspaper stand, I had the pleasant surprise of seeing on the front page of the Journal the reproduction of my picture ‘The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli’ (he painted in 1910/11, ed.)
* source, “La mia Vita”, Carrà; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger, Milan, 2008, p. 29
- ….that dizzy seething of forms and acoustic lights, rowdy and smelly (in the paintings of the Futurist exhibition, February 1912 in Paris, ed.)… …To obtain this total painting which calls for the active cooperation of all the senses: painting of the plastic mood of the universal, you have to paint the way drunkards sing and vomit, sounds, noises and smells….
* source of Carra’s quote , from ‘The painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells’, Boccioni, in ‘Lacerba’ vol. 1. no. 17, 1,Florence, 1 September 1913, pp. 186-186
- This bubbling and whirling of forms and lights, composed of sounds, noises, and smells has been partly achieved by me in my ‘Anarchical funeral’, (painting he made in 1910-1911, ed.)… …by Boccioni in ‘States of Minds’ and ‘Forces of a Street (both paintings made by Boccioni in 1911, ed.), by Russolo in ‘Rebellion’ (painting of 1911, ed.) and Severini in ‘Pan-Pan’ (first version Severini made in 1909-1911, ed.); paintings which were violently discussed at our first Paris exhibition in 1912.
* source of his artist quote, describing the dynamics in Futurist art, during the first Futurist Exhibition in Paris in 1912: ‘La Pittura dei suoni, rumori, odori, Carra, 11 Aug 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 142
- Constructions of a-rhythmical forms, the clash between concrete and abstract forms… …The acute angle is passionate and dynamic, expressing will and a penetrating force.
* quote from the artist in: ‘Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio’, March 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 146
- We insist that our concept of perspective is the total antitheses of all static perspective. It is dynamic and chaotic in application, producing in the mind of the observer a veritable mass of plastic emotions.
* artist quote from ‘Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio’, Carlo Carra, March 1913
- The Cubists, to be objective, restrict themselves to considering things by turning around them, to produce their geometric writing. So they remain at a stage of intelligence which sees everything and feels nothing, which brings everything to a standstill in order to describe everything. We Futurists are trying, on the contrary, with the power of intuition, to place ourselves at the very center of things, in such a way that our ego forms with their own uniqueness a single complex. We thus give plastic planes as plastic expansion in space, obtaining this feeling of something in perpetual motion which is peculiar to everything living.
* source of his artist quote, from ‘Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio’, March 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger
- Reds, rrrrreds, the rrrrreddest rrrrreds that shouuuuuuut.
* source of the quote from: ‘Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio’, Carra, March 1913
- …..(paintings as, ed.) the plastic equivalent of the sounds, noises and smells found in theatres, music-halls, cinemas, brothels, railways station, ports.
* quote on futurist painting, from ‘Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio’, Carra, March 1913
- He (Picasso, ed) is almost one of us (= the Futurists, ed).
* source, “Carlo Carra – Ardengo Soffici: Lettere 1913 – 1929”, Feltrinelli, Milan, 1983, p. 246
- We insist that our concept of perspective is the total antitheses of all static perspective. It is dynamic and chaotic in application, producing in the mind of the observer a veritable mass of plastic emotions.
* artist quote from ‘Piani plastici come espanzione sferica nello spazio’, Carlo Carra, March 1913
- We stand for a use of colour free from the imitation of objects and things as coloured objects. We stand for an aerial vision in which the material of colour is expressed in all of the manifold possibilities our subjectivity can create. (statement on Futurism and colour, 1913, ed.)
* source of Carra’s artist quote from: “Abstract Art”, Anna Moszynska, Thames and Hudson 1990, p. 26
Severini describes in artist quotes his Futurist painting art |
In 1910 Severini signed the ‘Manifesto of the Futurist Painters’ with his fellow Futurist artists Boccioni, Carrà, Russoli and Balla. Severini settled already in 1906 in Paris and was befriended with Modigliani. He knew many of the Cubists and reported in letters the Paris art developments in Cubism to his Futurist mates in Italy. Later in his life Severini got more and more attracted by Cubism; moreover by Purism, initiated by former Cubist Fernand Leger. – the editor.
- The cities to which I feel most strongly bound are Cortona (Italy, ed.) and Paris: I was born physically in the first, intellectually and spiritually in the second.
* Gino Severini, source of his artist quote from: Fonti, D. – Severini, Florence, Giunti, 1995ISBN: 88-09-76204-5
- It was during the first years (1906-1910, ed.) the we realized the presence of a dualism deep down within us, where another person, whom we ourselves do not know, tends, at the moment of the creative act, to supplant the person we believe ourselves to be and would like to be. It is difficult to bring these two individualities into accord, yet it is upon this accord that the development of a personality largely depends. My first contact with the art of Seurat (French neo-impressionism painter, ed.) whom I adopted, once and for all, as my master, did a great deal to help me to express myself in terms of the two simultaneous and often opposed aspirations. This opposition caused me much mental torture, I must admit… (quote in 1956) .
* source of his artist quote on color-divisionism and Seurat, from ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 247
- It should also be born in mind that the research on ‘movement’ and the dynamic outlook on the world, which were the basis of Futurist theory, in no way required one to paint nothing but speeding cars or ballerinas in action; for a person who is seated, or an inanimate object, though apparently static, could be considered dynamically and suggest dynamic forms. I may mention as an example the “Portrait of Madame S.” (1912) and the “Seated Woman” (1914).
* Severini, source of his critical quote on painting movement and dynamic as Futurist concept: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 248
- The Cubists and the other avant-garde can see the danger of being called Futurists. They are attracted by research involving the movement and the complexity of subjects. To avoid this kind of treat, they invented Orphism. (quote in a letter of 1913, ed.)
* Severini, source of his artist quote on Cubist Orphism art in Paris, in a: letter to Marinetti, 31 March 1913; as quoted in ‘Severini futurista’, op. cit, p. 146
- Appolinaire (French famous writer, poet and leading art theoretician on Cubism in Paris those days, ed.) told me about a book of his on the Cubists that’s about to come out. He divides the Cubists into Physical Cubists, (Gleize) [sic], who add some dramatic elements to their expression of external realities; Scientific Cubists (Picasso, Metzinger) and “Orphiques” [sic] (I give you (= Boccioni, ed.) this last classification in French because I don’t know how to translate it); in Appolinaire’s opinion the “Orphiques” [sic] seek new elements of expressing abstract realities; and we Futurists belong with the latter.
* Gino Severini, source of his critic on Orphism in Paris Cubism, from a letter to Futurist artist Boccioni, Paris, 29 October 1912; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 55
- The truth lies somewhere between these two aesthetics (static: Cubism and dynamic: Futurism, ed. ). The ‘pure form’ of Ingres (famous French classical painter who concentrated on static form, ed.) led inevitably to a life-less Platonism; the lyricism and romanticism of Delacroix (famous French Romanticism painter who pulled movement into his painting art and used ‘line’ as important painting element, ed.) no longer tailed with our cerebral and geometric age… …as in all great ages, today’s artwork must be the synthesis of these two things (remark in 1917, when Severini shifted gradually to a less dynamic concept in his painting art, ed.).
* Gino Severini, his quote describes the balance between static Cubism art and dynamic Futurism: from his ‘Preface’, Severini; in exhibition catalogue, Photo Secession Gallery, New York, March 1917
- In our young days, when Modigliani and I first came to Paris, in 1906, nobody was very clear about ideas. But unconsciously, we knew quite a lot of things, of which we became aware later on. (remark in an interview, 1956) .
* Severini, source of his quote; the artist describes his early years in Paris, from ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 247
- In the early days the Cubists’ method of grasping an object was to go round and round it (round about the object, like riding in a car in circles – as Fernand Leger illustrate so well in his artist quotes as a new modern way of perception, ed. ). The Futurists declared that one had to get inside it (inside the object, ed.). In my opinion the two views can be reconciled in a poetic cognition of the world. But to the very fact that they appealed to the creative depths in the painter by awakening in him hidden forces which were intuitive and vitalizing, the Futurist theories did more than the Cubist principles to open up unexplored and boundless horizons.
* Severini, quote on the different attributions by Cubism & Futurism in understanding and exploiting modern perception, from ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 248
- … since then (probably around 1916, ed.) I have found consolation in William Blake (English religious painter and graphic artist, ed.).”Without Contraries is no progression’’, he says in his “Proverbs of Hell’’. And Charles Baudelaire’s idea that ‘Variety is an essential condition of life’ seems to me to be in perfect accord with my aspirations and with my intention, as a Futurist painter, to put “life’’ in the place occupied by “reasoning” in the art of the Cubist period.
* Gino Severini’s quote on Blake and Baudelaire as inspiring for his attitude in creating art, from: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 247
- The intellectual abstraction of the second period of Cubism (= analytic Cubism, ed.) was of great importance, however. By its aspirations to the ‘eternal’ and its “concept of proportion inspired by the Classics” it revived the sense of craftsmanship concept in many painters. And this perfectly coincided with another of my ambitions – which was to make, with paint, an object having the same perfection of craftsmanship that a cabinet-maker would put into a piece of furniture.
* source of his quote on analytic Cubism with its classical aspirations: ”Letters of the great artists”, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, p. 248
- Futurism and Cubism are comparable in importance to the invention of perspective, for which they substituted a new concept of space. All subsequent movements were latent in them or brought about by them… … the two movements cannot be regarded as in opposition to each other, even though they started from opposite points; I maintain (an idea approved by Appolinaire and later by Matisse) that they are two extremes of the same sign, tending to coincide at certain points which only the poetic instinct of the painter can discover: “poetry” being the content and “raison d’être” of art.
* Gino Severini, his artist quote on the attribution of the movements Cubism and Futurism, concerning their new concept of space, from: ”Letters of the great artists, Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson , London, 1963, pp. 248 + 249
Luigi Russolo describes in his artist quotes the idea of simultaneity in Futurist painting & his Music of sounds |
Luigi Russolo was in Italian Futurism painter as well as music composer. He wrote the Futurist Manifesto ‘L’Arte dei Rumori’ / ‘The Art of Noises’ (1913). Russolo described himself as a Futurist painter, strongly fascinated by simultaneity, as het quotes describe. Luigi Russolo was perhaps the first noise artist. He stated that the industrial revolution had given modern men a greater capacity to appreciate more complex sounds. He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori and assembled a noise orchestra to perform with them. This resulted in 1914 in a riot of disapproval and violence from the audience.
- Above all, we (the Futurists, ed.) continue and develop the divisionist principle, but we are not engaged in Divisionism (developed by Seurat, Signac, Delaunay, fh). We apply an instinctive complementarism which is not, for us, an acquired technique, but rather a way of seeing things.
* Luigi Russolo, source of his quote ‘Le Futurisme: Création et avant-garde’; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 47
- On 9 March 1913, during our bloody victory over 4.000 past-lovers at the Constanzi theatre in Rome, we defended with punches and sticks your Futuristic Music, played by a mighty orchestra, when all of a sudden my intuitive mind came up with a new art which your genius alone can create: the Art of Noises…
* Luigi Russolo, source of his quote, ‘L’art des bruits’, Russolo in ‘Edizini futurista di Poesia, Milan 1916
- At first the art of music sought purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound. Then different sounds were amalgamated, care being taken, however, to caress the ear with gentle harmonies. Today music, as it becomes continually more complicated, strives to amalgamate the most dissonant, strange and harsh sounds. In this way we come ever closer to noise-sound.
* Luigi Russolo’s quote on modern music and Futurism, from ‘Manifesto the Art of Noise’, in ‘Paris-Journal’, 1 April 1913
- In the resounding atmosphere of large cities as well in formerly noiseless country sides, the machine today creates such a large number of varied noises that pure sound no longer arouses any emotion, because of its smallness and its monotype.
* Luigi Russolo’s quote on the machine noises and music, from his ‘Manifesto the Art of Noise’, in ‘Paris-Journal’, 1 April 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 328
- Conclusions, (taken from Russolo’s Futurist music Manifesto ‘The Art of noises’):
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1. Futurist musicians must continually enlarge and enrich the field of sounds. This corresponds to a need in our sensibility. We note, in fact, in the composers of genius, a tendency towards the most complicated dissonances. As these move further and further away from pure sound, they almost achieve noise-sound. This need and this tendency cannot be satisfied except by the adding and the substitution of noises for sounds.
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2. Futurist musicians must substitute for the limited variety of tones possessed by orchestral instruments today the infinite variety of tones of noises, reproduced with appropriate mechanisms
- 3. The musician’s sensibility, liberated from facile and traditional Rhythm, must find in noises the means of extension and renewal, given that every noise offers the union of the most diverse rhythms apart from the predominant one.
- 4. Since every noise contains a predominant general tone in its irregular vibrations it will be easy to obtain in the construction of instruments which imitate them a sufficiently extended variety of tones, semitones, and quarter-tones. This variety of tones will not remove the characteristic tone from each noise, but will amplify only its texture or extension.
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5. The practical difficulties in constructing these instruments are not serious. Once the mechanical principle which produces the noise has been found, its tone can be changed by following the same general laws of acoustics. If the instrument is to have a rotating movement, for instance, we will increase or decrease the speed, whereas if it is to not have rotating movement the noise-producing parts will vary in size and tautness.
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6. The new orchestra will achieve the most complex and novel aural emotions not by incorporating a succession of life-imitating noises but by manipulating fantastic juxtapositions of these varied tones and rhythms. Therefore an instrument will have to offer the possibility of tone changes and varying degrees of amplification.
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7. The variety of noises is infinite. If today, when we have perhaps a thousand different machines, we can distinguish a thousand different noises, tomorrow, as new machines multiply, we will be able to distinguish ten, twenty, or thirty thousand different noises, not merely in a simply imitative way, but to combine them according to our imagination.
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8. We therefore invite young musicians of talent to conduct a sustained observation of all noises, in order to understand the various rhythms of which they are composed, their principal and secondary tones. By comparing the various tones of noises with those of sounds, they will be convinced of the extent to which the former exceed the latter. This will afford not only an understanding, but also a taste and passion for noises. After being conquered by Futurist eyes our multiplied sensibilities will at last hear with Futurist ears. In this way the motors and machines of our industrial cities will one day be consciously attuned, so that every factory will be transformed into an intoxicating orchestra of noises.
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Dear Pratella, I submit these statements to your Futurist genius, inviting your discussion. I am not a musician, I have therefore no acoustical predilections, nor any works to defend. I am a Futurist painter using a much loved art to project my determination to renew everything. And so, bolder than a professional musician could be, unconcerned by my apparent incompetence and convinced that all rights and possibilities open up to daring, I have been able to initiate the great renewal of music by means of the Art of Noises.
* Luigi Russolo, source of this quotes from his futurist ‘Manifesto the Art of Noise’
Giacomo Balla describes in his artist quotes Futurist painting & color-divisionism |
Giacomo Ballawas the senior artist in Italian Futurism and art-teacher in color-divisionism for the younger Futurist artists Boccioni and Severini. Attracted by Marinetti’s explosive ideas Balla threw in his lot with Futurism art style in 1910 and co-signed the definitive version of the Futurist Manifesto. In his paintings Balla realized pictorial mixtures of light, movement and speed.
- It (the photo of a moving girl by Jules-Etienne Marey, exhibited at the 1900 Exposition Universelle and seen there by Balla, ed.) will interest artists because in it, I have made a special study of the way of walking of this girl, and in fact, I have succeeded in giving the illusion that she is in the process of moving forward.
* Balla’s art quote on painting ‘movement’ as a Futurist concept, from: ‘Lista”, Balla, catalogue raisonné, Edizione Galleria Fonte d’Abisso, Modena, 1982, p. 248
- They (his former pupils in Rome / the young Futurist painters Boccioni and Severini, ed.) did not want anything to do with me in Paris and they were right: they have gone much further than I, but I will work and I too will progress.
* source of his quote from a letter; quoted by Boccioni to Severini, Jan. 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 248
- Use materials (with materials Balla means here clothes, ed. ) with forceful MUSCULAR colours – the reddest of reds, the most purple of purples, the greenest of greens, intense yellows, orange, vermillion – and SKELETON tones of white, grey and black.
* Balla, his art statement describing how to use forceful colors, from an unpublished ‘Futurist Manifesto of Men’s clothing’, Balla, dedicated to Marinetti in 1914; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148
- And we must invent dynamic designs to go with them and express them in equally dynamic shapes: triangles, cones, spirals, ellipses, circles, etc.
* Balla’s quote describes how to use designs for painting dynamic movement in modern life, from : unpublished ‘Futurist Manifesto of Men’s clothing’, Balla, dedicated to Marinetti in 1914; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148
Robert Delaunay describes in his quotes the idea of simultaneity – like in Futurism – and color-divisionism |
Robert Delaunay was a French artist in Paris who started at first his painting art in Cubism. After some years he reacted on the limited and rigid color use of cubist art and co-founded with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others the Orphism art movement. Their art concept was simultaneousness and emphasis on color. .
- What they (the Futurists like Severini, Carra and Russolo, who debated in Paris intensively with the Cubist artists and their spokesman Appolinaire, ed.) are saying is okay.
* Robert Delaunay, his artist quote on the Futurist artists in Paris, from a letter, February 1912; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 184
- ‘Simultaneousness’ is a technique. Simultaneous contrast is the most up-to-date of this technique in this field. Simultaneous contrast is visible depth – Reality, Form, construction, representation. Depth is the new inspiration. We live in depth, we travel in depth. I’m in it. The senses are in it. And the mind is too.
* Delaunay’s quote describes simultaneousness, as core technique of Orphism, from an article by art-critic Félix Fénéon, who collected art-notes of Delaunay – published in ‘Simultanism’, October 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 57
- This happened in 1912… …. I made paintings that seemed like prisms compared to the Cubism my fellow artists were producing. I was the heretic of Cubism. I had great arguments with my comrades who banned color from their palette, depriving it of all elemental mobility. I was accused of returning to Impressionism, of making decorative paintings (by other Cubist artists, ed.), etc.… …. I felt I had almost reached my goal.
* Delaunay’s artist quote on his use of colors and his arguments with the other Cubists – from his “First Notebook,” 1939, as quoted on Wikipedia, English
Malevich describes the idea of dynamism in his manifest ‘Cubo-Futurism’ – founder of Russian Suprematism |
Kazimir Malevich was the founder of Russian Suprematism – the modern art style developed from Constructivism, and strongly influenced by Futurism & Cubism. In 1915 Malevich laid down the foundations by publishing his famous manifesto ‘From Cubism to Suprematism’. Also Italian Futurism inspired his theoretical ideas on Suprematism. After 1927 Malewich moved to a more representational, almost ‘classical’ painting style, inspired by Renaissance painting.
- Dynamism is also the forming formula for Futurists works; i.e. dynamism is the additional element that transforms the perception of one state of phenomena to another, for example, from a static to a dynamic perception.
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* Kazimir Malevich, his artist quote on Dynamism, from ‘Cubo-futurism’, Kasimir Malevich, in “Essays on Art”, op. cit., Vol 2.; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 59
- …the art of Futurism… …achieved great momentum in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century and remains a basic stimulus in the following forms of new art: Suprematism, Simultaneism, Purism, Odorism, Pankinetism, Tactilism, Haptism, Expressionism and Légerísm (referring to the French artist Fernand Leger, ed.)
* Malevich, his artist quote describes the many relevant art-isme’s in the start of the 20th century, from: ‘Cubofuturism’, Kasimir Malevich, in “Essays on Art”, op. cit., Vol 2.; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 59
- There is movement and movement. There are movements of small tension and movements of great tension and there is also a movement which our eyes cannot catch although it can be felt. In art this state is called dynamic movement. This special movement was discovered by the Futurists as a new and hitherto unknown phenomenon in art, a phenomenon which some Futurists were delighted to reflect.
* Malevich’s artist quote on ‘movement’ & Futurism, from: ‘Cubofuturism’, Malevich, in “Essays on Art”, op. cit., Vol 2.; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 59
- He (Balla – the Italian senior Futurist painter, ed.) advanced Dynamic Futurism… …drawing closer, not to the human body but to the machine, as contemporary muscles of a man of today… …The actual structure of each of Balla’s works tells us that the dynamic power sensed by the artist is incomparable greater than the actual bodies of the machines, and the content of each machine is only a small part of this dynamic power, since each machine is a mere unit from the sum total of the forces of contemporary life.
* Kazimir Malevich – artist quote on Balla, the Italian senior Futurist artist, from ‘Cubo-Futurism’, Malevich, in “Essays on Art”, op. cit., Vol 2.; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, pp. 59, 60.
Piet Mondrian describes in his artist quotes ‘ movement and modern city phenomena, similar to Futurism |
Piet Mondrian started as young painter in Dutch Impressionism – landscape painter from origin; It was after 1912 in Paris that hMondrian got strongly influenced by early French Cubism and the art-concepts of Futurism. He laid down – with a. o. Theo van Doesburg – the basics of a fundamentally new abstract art. Both published their conclusions in many ‘De Stijl’ art-publications
- It is clear to me that this (De Stijl art, ed.) is art for the future. Futurism, although it has advanced beyond naturalism, occupies itself too much with human sensations. Cubism – which in its content is still too much concerned with earlier aesthetic products, and thus less rooted in its own time than Futurism – Cubism has taken a giant step in the direction of abstraction, and is in this respect of its own time and of the future. Thus in its content it is not modern, but in its effect it is.
* source of Mondrian’s artist quote from a letter to the Dutch art critic and buyer of Mondrians paintings, H. P. Bremmer Paris 29 January 1914; as quoted in “Mondrian, -The Art of Destruction”, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 77
- – The new vision… …does not proceed from a fixed point (discussing with Van Doesburg who had a different view on architecture , ed.). Its viewpoint is everywhere, and not limited to any one position (in space, ed. Nor is it bound by space or time (in accordance with the theory of relativity) (of Einstein, ed.) In practice, the viewpoint is in front of the plane… …Thus this new vision sees architecture as a multiplicity of planes; again flat. This multiplicity composes itself (in an abstract sense) into a flat image (where Van Doesburg emphasis the dynamic position of the viewer – an core concept of Futurism – , while walking through the designed environment, ed.)
* source of Mondrian’s quote from “Mondrian, -The Art of Destruction”, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, pp. 148
- – (a modern city like Paris, ed.) is beautiful in its perfection, but perfection means death and decay. Thus interfering with the process of dying is a crime against perfection: it stands in the way of a higher perfection.
* source of his artist quote, from ‘Natuurlijke en abstracte realiteit’, Piet Mondriaan, ‘De Stijl’ III, 1920, p. 75
- Ru-h-ru-h-ru-h-h-h-h. Pooh-ooh-ooh. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Pre. R-r-r-r-r-uh-h. Huh! Bang. Su-su-su-ur. Booh-a-ah. R-r-r-r. Pooh…multitude of sounds, all mixed together. Motorcars, buses, carts, carriages, people, lamp-posts, trees… alm mixed together; in front of cafés, shops, offices, posters, shop windows: multitude of things. Motion and standstills: different movement. Movement in space and movement in time (Mondrian’s verbal expression here is very similar to Futurism, ed.). Multitude of images and all sorts of ideas. Images are veiled truths. All different truths form what is true. What is individual does not display all in a single image… …Ru-ru-ru-u-u. Pre. Images are boundaries. Multitude of images and all sorts of boundaries. Elimination of images and boundaries through all sorts of images. Boundary clouds what is true. Rebus: where is what is true? Boundaries are just as relative as images, as time and space (this poem of Mondrian has strong connections with the dynamic visual expressions of Futurist artists by a. o. Boccioni, ed.)
* source of Mondrian’s quote, from ‘The Grand Boulevards’, Piet Mondriaan, ’De Groene Amsterdammer’, 27 March 1920 pp. 4-5
- The artist make things move, and is moved. He is policeman, motor car, everything at once. He who makes things move also creates rest. That which aesthetically is brought to rest is art.
* source of his quote describing Paris hectic from ‘The Grand Boulevards’, Piet Mondriaan, ’De Groene Amsterdammer’, 27 March 1920 pp. 4-5
- …(jazz and Neo-Plasticism are) highly revolutionary phenomena: they are destructive constructive. They do not destroy the actual content of form, but rather deepen form only in order to elevate it to a new order. They break the bonds of “form as individuality” in order to make possible a universal unity.
* source of his quote ‘De Jazz en de Neo-plastiek’, Piet Mondriaan, ‘i 10 1’, 1927 pp. 421-427
- …the Place de l’Opera gives a better image of the new life than many theories. Its rhythms of opposition, twice repeated in its two directions, realizes a living equilibrium through the exactness of its execution.
* source of Mondrians quote, from ‘The New Art – The New Life’, Piet Mondrian, op. cit. Introduction. Note 1., 1931; as quoted in “Mondrian, -The Art of Destruction”, Carel Blotkamp, Reaktion Books LTD. London 2001, p. 226
- The important task of all art is to destroy the static equilibrium by establishing a dynamic one. Non-figurative art demands an attempt of what is a consequence of this task, the destruction of particular form and the construction of a rhythm of mutual relations, of mutual forms, or free lines… …the law of the denaturalization of matter is of fundamental importance. In painting, the primary color that is as pure as possible realizes this abstraction of natural color
* source of Mondrian’s quote: ‘Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art’, Piet Mondrian; as quoted in “Artists on Art – from the 14th – 20th centuries”, ed. by Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves; Pantheon Books, 1972, London, p. 428.
Theo van Doesburg describes art characteristics of Futurism |
- Van Doesburg was a famous Dutch artist and co-founder of the art magazine and artist-group ‘De Stijl’ with Piet Mondrian. He described in his many art manifestos, letters, writings, essays, and Journals frequently his ideas and concepts on art. After his De Stijl period and his disagreements with Mondrian, Van Doesburg cooperated with Dada artists Kurt Schwitters, and in Paris with Hans Arp.
- (Futurism’s) …superficial expression of velocity, the aero plane, the racing-car and so on, is but a weak expression of the inner velocity of thought compared to which the velocity of radium represents nothing but inertia… …The mimetic expression of velocity (whatever its form may be: the aero plane, the automobile, and so on) is diametrically opposed to the character of painting, the supreme origin of which is to be found in inner life.
* Theo van Doesburg, source of his artist quote on velocity in painting art, published in the magazine: ‘Eenheid’ (Dutch for Unity) no. 127, 9 November 1912; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 16
- True artistic experience is never passive, for the spectator is obliged to participate, as it were, in the continuous or discontinuous variations of proportions, positions, lines and planes. Moreover, he must see clearly how this play of repeated or non-repeated changes may give rise to a new harmony of relations which will constitute the unity of the work. Every part becomes organized into a whole with the other parts. All the parts contribute to the unity of the composition, none of them assuming a dominant place in the whole. (remark on the necessary internal unity in a work of art and a comparable role of the spectator of art similar as in Futurism, 1925, ed.)
* Theo van Doesburg, his artist quote on the active task of the art-spectator to be able to experience unity in the artwork, from: ”Abstract Painting”, Michel Seuphor, Dell Publishing Co. 1964, p. 86
- Marinetti’s (leading Futurist theorist and poet, fh) Tactilism can be seen as an instinctive effort in this direction even if it presents only the sensuous-tactile expression of space through using various materials. Picasso’s earlier compositions in various materials also concerns us here (for the proposed new architecture, fh) The Russian artists (Tatlin and Lissitzky) also appreciated the exterior quality of the plane, not only optical, but also in a tactile manner… …Intuition already produced a foreknowledge of these new realms, but they can be established fully only by science.
* Van Doesburg, his artist quote proposing the sensuous-tactile expression of space as essential for new architecture, in an unpublished writing: ‘The struggle for the new’, 1929-30; as quoted in “Theo van Doesburg”, Joost Baljeu, Studio Vista, London 1974, p. 187
editor: Fons Heijnsbroek
