Futurists' Criticism Of Traditional Ideas

In the twentieth century, Futurism was a modern art movement that was established by Marinetti. Marinetti published several manifestoes to spread about futuristic ideas and express his hatred for traditional ideas. A manifesto is “a public declaration of policy and aims”. In this essay, I will discuss the reasons why the futurists attack ideas they believed to be associated with the past. The futurists attack such ideas because they wanted to disrupt the existing order and revitalise what they perceived as a decaying nation and culture. However, they had a more utopian idealism and it was not a genuine attempt to overthrow the government. This can be observed through their ambitious goals, contradictory ideas and actions, which expose their true motives.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, in which Italy finally united as a nation, the nation’s economic, political and social situation was still extremely unstable. The futurists, particularly Marinetti, blamed the situation on the fact that Italy was too focused on the past glory of Italy and was unable to progress forward, this fuelled their passion to attack old ideas. This can be proved as Marinetti claimed that Italy was “dying of pastism”. The word ‘dying’ provides a strong image of the dire situation Italy was in. Marinetti also mentioned that Italy was suffering from all the poor circumstances because Italy was too obsessed with old ideas like “archaeology, academicism, … the obsession with sex, the tourism industry”. This demonstrated how Marinetti tried to make a connection between the poor circumstances and the obsession of past ideas. It can be assumed that he was trying to distort the image of the situation by claiming that even though many countries were also suffering from poor conditions, Italy suffered the most. Thus, his claim was thought to be irrational. Also, the hatred of the past is strongly demonstrated by Marinetti as he wanted to demolish all buildings that held and promote old ideas and go against “moralism [and] feminism”. This suggested that Marinetti’s writings were not philosophical and that he was irrational. Furthermore, the futurists disapproved any ideas that promoted past glory. Instead, they wanted to industrialise the nation for the revolution to occur, they wanted to glorify technology, speed and vitality of life unconditionally. This implies that the futurists had unrealistic goals because they based their idea of revolution solely and unconditionally on technology, speed and vital life. However, Marinetti’s motives should be examined. According to Lyttelton, due to the inspiration from the “aesthetic of speed”, Marinetti aimed to use his manifesto to aggressively disrupt the existing order, in which he succeeded. Therefore, after considering the motives behind Marinetti’s manifestoes, it can be assumed that the futurists attack such traditional ideas simply because they hated old ideas and wanted to create disharmony. They did not expect themselves to achieve their stated aims. They only anticipated a certain degree of impact and strove to create disorder.

Also, Marinetti argued that Venetians are “drugged by a contemptible mean cowardice in the practice of their one-directional business” and have been stripped of their past glory. ‘[D]rugged’ is a metaphor used to exaggerate that the Venetians were under the influence of the obsession with the old ideas to stubbornly continue with their tourism business that did not benefit the economy. For Marinetti to use such extreme language, it is evident that he wanted to accuse the Venetians of being illogical for not wanting to give up on the tourism industry and strongly discourage tourism businesses that promote traditional Italy. Lista also supported by mentioning that Marinetti “used a language full of striking formulas, devastating and provocative”. This stresses that Marinetti was extremely cunning in terms of how he crafted his manifestoes, he wanted to achieve an impact that will be able to disrupt the existing order. He wanted to disrupt the harmony in Venice so that people would try to overturn the tourism industry so that Venice could be modernised in terms of technology. This can be seen in “[l]et the reign of holy Electric Light finally come, to liberate Venice from its greedy moon-lit rented rooms” which suggests the technological advancement of electricity will be able to free Venetians from using Venice just as a tourist attraction. Using ‘holy’ to describe electricity demonstrated how Marinetti put technology in a divine place. He overstated the power of electricity to mislead people to think that technology has the ultimate power to overthrow the poor state of the economy. It can be believed that the futurists aimed to destroy the peace in Venice just because they hated any ideas that promoted or preserved old ideas. With their motives focusing on disrupting the peace of Italy, it can be determined that the futurists had a more utopian idealism in the sense that they were just trying to influence people to disrupt the existing order and had no actual intention of trying to overthrow the government. This can be seen from their impracticality in wanting to destroy the tourism industry.

For Marinetti who had been inspired by the conceptual idea of bringing Italy back to life, he wanted to influence Italian art towards modernism. However, this inspiration was only supported by his “mythical perception of Italy”. This proposed the idea of Marinetti having unrealistic aims because he based his movement on his fictitious impression of Italy. This emphasised how Marinetti had fantasy-like goals for Italy. It can be speculated that Marinetti had no intention to achieve those goals. As artists and writers, the futurists were more concerned to demonstrate their completely original experiences to revitalise Italy. The futurists had goals which strove to show completely new experiences that were not associated with the past at all so that they can revitalise what they perceived as a decaying nation and culture. However, their goals were impractical because they wanted to construct a new Italian culture just with their art. Thus, this suggests that the futurists had a utopian idealism, it also analysed that they were insincere in terms of wanting to revolutionise Italy. It can be argued that the futurists concentrated more on the culture and were more interested in modernising Italian art and had no actual intention of revitalising the nation. This is further proven with the manifesto Marinetti published in 1932 which he stressed that Mussolini would govern Italy and that the futurists would continue to have the freedom to govern in terms of art.

However, Lista analysed Marinetti’s ambitions to be deceptive as Fascism was using Futurist avant-garde to its benefits, and that Marinetti compromised futuristic art, which led to its failures. This established the image that Marinetti was too concerned with arts instead of politics and had overly ambitious goals. Thus, that led to him compromising his initial aim of modernising art which then failed. The futurists’ lack of interest in politics demonstrated that they did not have any real intention of overthrowing the government. It can be believed that they advocated impractical ideas to provoke the people so they would be encouraged to revolutionise Italy so that Italian art could be modernised. This impracticality also suggests that they did not actually believe that they would be able to accomplish their stated aims, they just wanted the spotlight for Futurism.

Marinetti claimed that “hunger and poverty [will] disappear”. However, he was one that was unaware of the real social issues in Italy. This examined whether Marinetti intended to improve the social state of Italy. For one that was ignorant to the real social issues, it can be assumed that he wanted to cause chaos to the existing order than genuinely want to improve the poor living conditions in Italy. This demonstrated how Marinetti contradicted his policies as he claimed that he wanted an improvement in the social issues but the truth was that he disregarded the poor living conditions in Italy. From “[w]e will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene”, it can be argued that Marinetti was aggressively promoting war. He believed that war will make the world more hygienic, implying that killing people that preserved and promoted traditional ideas will have a cleansing power which will improve the living conditions of Italy.

However, promoting war actually had no benefits for the poor in Italy. Instead, it worsened the issues of hunger and poverty. Marinetti claimed that Italy will be reconstructed after the war and that the war will help Italy to stand by itself with its resources. However, Lyttelton refuted by stating that Italy was financially and militarily unprepared. Since Italy was already lacking resources, it was impossible that Italy would be able to revitalise after its involvement in war because the war would deplete the resources instead of providing more resources. This contradicted Marinetti’s claim that the war will allow Italy to be independent, just using its natural resources. Thus, it can be proven that Marinetti did not consider the poor standard of living and continued to glorify war so that he could provoke people to disrupt the existing order. Therefore, the futurists are unrealistic in terms of their goals and had contradictory ideas and actions which expose their real motives of wanting to disrupt peace and order instead of genuinely wanting to overthrow the government.

To conclude, the futurists were heavily influenced by their hatred of traditional ideas to attack any ideas associated with the past. Thus, they wanted to manifest unrest in Italy for a revolution which would create a rejuvenated Italy to take place. However, they had too many unrealistic goals that have hidden motives. Also, it is speculated that the futurists, especially Marinetti, did not actually mean what he mentioned in his manifestoes. In many aspects like modernising art, putting technology to good use, and solving social issues, the futurists, particularly Marinetti had too specific and impeccable goals which convinced me that the futurists had a utopian idealism. Thus, this proves that they had no genuine intention of accomplishing what they proposed.