Futurism
During the first decade of the twentieth
century, a group of young Italian
painters united together, under the
influence of poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
Before creating their new
style, these painters embraced the ideas of
Marinetti’s The Foundation
and Manisfesto of Futurism which appeared in the
newspaper Le Figaro on
February 20, 1909 (Tisdall 7). His manifesto of futurism
was primarily
concerned with peotry, but artists such as Boccioni, Balla, and
Severini
used his ideas and applied them to painting and sculpture. The Museum
of
Modern Art holds Umberto Boccioni’s Dynamism of a Soccer Player, 1913, a
fine
example of the Futurist vision. In his Futurist Painting: A
Technical
Manifesto, Boccioni tells us that the "growing need of truth is
no longer
satisfied with Form and Colour as they have been understood
hitherto. The
gesture which we would reproduce on canvas shall no longer be a
fixed moment in
universal dynamism. It shall be the "dynamic sensation
itself" (Apollonio
27). This goal of creating the dynamic sensation
itself, rather than simply a
fixed moment within a dynamic action is
exemplified, among other ideas of the
Futurist movement in Boccioni’s
Dynamism of a Soccer Player. Before going
further however, it is necessary to
discuss some of the principles of Futurism
as created by Marinetti.
Marinetti’s The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism is
a work which begins
like a work of poetry, and deals with the celebration with
the technology,
the future, and the machine, while rejecting the natural world
and the past.
Marinetti despises the sounds created by canals "muttering
feeble prayers",
and "the creaking bones of sickly palaces," while he
embraces the "famished
roar of automobiles" (Apollonio 19-20). He orders us
to "shake the gates of
life", and instead, "test the bolts and hinges" (Apollonio
20). To
Marinetti, technology and the machine, such as the automobiles, are to
be
embraced and celebrated for its speed and beauty. No longer is a
natural
landscape beautiful, rather "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 ride on
grapeshot" is seen as more beautiful than any romantic
painting (Apollonio
21). In addition to celebrating the machine, the
Futurist movement represents a
striding towards the future. This is
accomplished by rejecting all of the past,
even going as far as saying that
it is harmful. Marinetti instructs his
followers to "destroy the museums,
libraries, [and] academies of every kind"
(Apollonio 22). He explains that it
is damaging for an artist to daily visit
museums, libraries, and academies,
calling them "cemeteries of empty exertion,
Calvaries of crucified
dreams, registries of aborted beginnings!" (Apollonio
23). Umberto
Boccioni was a follower of Marinetti, and used his ideas to create
his own
manifesto, Futurist Painting: Technical Manifesto, which contains the
ideas
and objectives manifested in Dynamism of a Soccer Player. The
Italian
movement represents a celebration of the machine and technology,
embracing speed
and dynamism. Paintings in this style utilize contrasting
complementary colors,
triangular patterns, and repeated patterns in order to
simulate movement and
feverish speed. Boccioni’s work combines many elements
of modern art, for
instance, the geometric design of the Cubist,
Neo-Impressionism pointillist
brushstrokes, and vivid coloration. Though the
painting does not contain a
machine in a technical sense, it is still a work
inspired by the writings of
Marinetti. Concerning the idea of the beauty
of speed, Boccioni is successful in
creating a work which has a very quick
and dynamic feel to it. He chose a soccer
player as his subject, and rather
than painting him in the traditional sense,
the subject is portrayed in a
manner as to show movement and dynamism.
Boccioni’s goal was to show the
"dynamic sensation itself", and not simply
the "fixed moment in universal
dynamism" (Apollonio 27). This is
accomplished by painting the figure,
especially his leg, numerous times, because"on account of the persistency of an
image upon the retina, moving objects
constantly multiply themselves"
(Apollonio 28). The soccer player appears to
start out on the right side of
the canvas, and then run into the depths of the
upper left corner. This
feeling is also created by the shapes and colors used.
There appears to
be a trail of light going into the upper left corner of the
painting which
gives the impression that the figure is feverishly running off.
The
triangular shapes surrounding the figure give the painting a cyclical
feel,
and also give the figure a sense of rapid movement. Boccioni wanted to
create
this feeling of speed and dynamism, for he believed in the Futurist
idea of
striding into the future, and not looking back into the past. The
shapes within
this work give it a Cubist quality, but it contains much more
vibrant coloration
and sense of movement. Boccioni created with vibrant and
complemetary colors in
Dynamism of a Soccer Player. The colors used for
the figure and the surrounding
areas of purples, blues, reds, greens,
yellows, and oranges are appropriate for
a painting celebrating the future
and technology. They appear to be unnatural
and coming from a modern
unnatural source of light. In his manifesto, Boccioni
delclares that "innate
complemetariness" is an absolute necessity in
painting and that "the time has
passed for our sensations in painting to be
whispered. We wish them in the
future to sing and re-echo upon our canvases in
deafening and triumphant
flourishes" (Apollonio 29). The complementary colors
used also contribute to
the dynamism of the work in a similar way that the
juxtaposed complemetaries
used by the Impressionists create a flicker and sense
of movement. Boccioni’s
Dynamism of a Soccer Player is a work which is an
appropriate example of the
manifestation of the Futurist ideals proposed by
Marinetti. With its
appearance of speed, sense of striding toward the future,
and aggressive
character, this work is the embodiment of Futurism.