Page 18 - Studio International - April 1966
P. 18

The Realistic Manifesto 1920







       Above the tempest of our weekdays,       and the noise and the clang of carouselling streets   them; colour is accidental and it has nothing in com­
        Across the ashes and cindered homes of the past,   •.•  does one really need to convince them that all   mon with the innermost essence of a thing.
        Before the gates of the vacant future,   that is not'necessary for speed and for its rhythms?   We affirm that the tone of a substance, i.e. its light­
       We proclaim today to you artists,  painters, sculp­  Look at a ray of sun  .•• the stillest of the still forces,   absorbing·ma\erial body is its only pictorial reality.
       tors, musicians, actors, poets .•• to you people to   it speeds more than 300 kilometres in a second  •••  2  We renounce in a line, its descriptive value; in real
       whom art is no mere ground for conversation but the   behold our starry firmament  ••• who  hears  it  •••  life there are no descriptive lines, description is an
       source of real exaltation, our word and deed.   and yet what are our depots to those  depots of the   accidental trace of a man on things, it Is not bound up
       The impasse into which Art.has come to in the last   Universe? What are our earthly trains to those hurry­  with the essential life and constant structure of the
      twenty years must be broken.              ing trains of the galaxies?              body. Descriptiveness is an element of graphic illus­
       The growth of human knowledge with its powerful   Indeed, the whole Futurist noise about speed is too   tration and decoration.
       penetration  into  the  mysterious  laws  of  the  world   obvious  an  anecdote,  and  from  the  moment  that   We affirm the line only as a direction of the static
       which started at the dawn of this  century,  the  blos- ·  Futurism proclaimed that 'Space and Time are yester­  forces and their rhythm in objects.
       soming of a new culture and a new civilization with   day's dead', it sunk into the obscurity of abstractions.   3  We  renounce  volume  as  a  pictorial  and  plastic
       their unprecedented-in-history surge of the  masses   Neither Futurism nor Cubism has brought us what our   form of space; one cannot measure space in volumes
       towards  the  possession  of  the  riches  of  Nature,  a   time  has  expected  of  them.  Besides  those  two   as one cannot measure liquid in yards: look at our
       surge  which  binds  the  people  into  one  union,  and   artistic  schools our recent  past has had nothing of _  space  .•• what is it if not one continuous depth?
       last, not least, the war and the revolution (those puri­  importance or deserving attention.   We affirm depth as the only pictorial and plastic form
       fying  torrents.of the coming epoch),  have made us   But Life does not wait and the growth of generations   of space.
       face the fact of new forms of life,  already born and   does not stop and we who go to relieve those who have   4  W£: renounce in sculpture, the mass  as a  sculp­
       active.                                  passed into history, having in our hands the· results   tural element.
       What  does  Art  carry  into  this  unfolding  epoch  of   of  their  experiments,  with  their  mistakes  and  their   It is known to every engineer that the static forces of
       human history?  Does it possess the means neces­  achievements, after years of experience equal to cen­  a solid body and its material strength do not depend
       sary for the construction of the new Great Style?  Or   turies  .••  we say  •••   on  the  quantity  of  the  mass ••• example a rail, a
       does it suppose that the new epoch may not have a                                 T-beam etc.
       new style?  Or does it suppose that the new life can   No new artistic system  will  withstand  the  pressure   But you  sculptors  of all shades and directions, you
       accept  a new creation which is constructed on the   of a growing new culture until the very foundation of   still adhere to the age-old prejudice that you cannot
      foundations of the old?                   Art will be erected on the real laws of Life.  Until all   free the volume of mass. Here (in this exhibition) we
       In spite of the demand of the renascent spirit of our   artists will say with us . . .  All is a fiction .•• only   take four planes and we construct with them the same
       time,  Art  is  still  nourished  by  impression,  external   life  and  its  laws  are  authentic  and  in  life  only  the   volume as of four tons of mass.
       appearance,  and wanders helplessly back and forth   active is beautiful and wise and strong and right, for   Thus we bring back to sculpture the line as a direc­
       from Naturalism to Symbolism, from Romanticism to   life does not know beauty as an aesthetic measure • • •    tion  and in it  we  affirm  depth  as  the  one  form  of
       Mysticism.                               efficacious  existence  is  the  highest  beauty.  Life   space.
       The attempts of the Cubists and the Futurists to lift   knows neither good nor bad nor justice as a measure   5  We renounce the  thousand-year-old  delusion  in
       the visual arts from the bogs of the past have led only   of morals  .•• need is the highest and most just of   art that held the static rhythms as the only elements
       to new delusions.  Cubism, having started with sim­  all morals.  Life does not know rationally abstracted   of the plastic and pictorial arts.
       plification of th� representative technique ended with   truths as a measure of cognizance, deed is the highest   We affirm in these arts a new element the kinetic
       its analysis and stuck there.  The distracted world of   and surest of truths.    rhythms as the basic forms of our perception of real
       the Cubists, broken in shreds by their logical anarchy,   Those are the laws of life. Can art withstand these   time.
       cannot satisfy us who have already accomplished the   laws  if  it  is  built  on  abstraction,  on  mirage,  and
       Revolution or who are already constructing and build­  fiction?                   These are the five fundamental principles of our work
       Ing up anew.  One could heed with interest the ex­                                and our constructi,;,e technique.
      periments of the Cubists, but one cannot follow them,   We  say  . • .  Space  and  time  are  re-born  to  us   Today we proclaim our words to you people. In the
       being  convinced  that  their  experiments  are  being   today.  Space and time are the only forms on which   squares and on the streets we are placing our work
       made on the surface of Art and do not touch on the   life  is  built  and  hence  art  must  be  constructed.  convinced that art must not remain a sanctuary for
       bases of it seeing plainly that the end result amounts   States, political and economic systems perish, ideas   the idle, a consol.ation for the weary, and a justifica­
       to the same old graphic, to the same old volume and   crumble,  under  the  strain  of  ages  .•. but  life  is   tion for the lazy. Art should attend us everywhere that
      to the same decorative surface as of old.   strong and grows and time goes on in its real con­  life flows and acts  .•. at the bench, at the table, at
       One could have hailed  Futurism in its .time for the   tinuity.                   work, at rest, at play; on working days and holidays
       refreshing sweep of its announced Revolution in Art,   Who will show us forms more efficacious than this   •.. at home and on the road  •.. in order that the
      for its devastating criticism of the past, as in no other   •.. who is the great one who will give us foundations   flame to live should not extinguish in mankind.
      way could one have assailed those artistic barricades   stronger than this?  Who is the genius who will tell   We do not look for justification,  neither in the past
      of 'good taste'  ••• powder was needed for that and   us  a  legend  more  ravishing  than  this  prosaic  tale   nor in the future.  Nobody can tell us what the future
      a lot of it  ... but one cannot construct a system of   which is called life?      is and what utensils does one eat it with.  Not to lie
      art on one revolutionary phrase alone.  One had to   The realization of our perceptions of the world In the   about the future is impossible and one can lie about it
      examine Futurism beneath its appearance to realize   forms of space and time is the only aim of our pic­  at will.  We assert that the shouts about the future
      that one faced a very ordinary chatterer, a very agile   torial and plastic art.  In them we do not measure our   are  for us the same  as  the tears  about the  past:  a
      and prevaricating guy, clad in the tatters of worn-out   works with the yardstick of beauty, we do not weigh   renovated  day-dream of  the romantics.  A  monkish
      words like 'patriotism', 'militarism', 'contempt for the'   them  with  pounds  of  tenderness  and  sentiments.  delirium of the heavenly kingdom of the old attired In
      female', and all the rest of such provincial tags.   The  plumb-line  in  our  hand,  eyes  as  precise  as  a   contemporary clothes. He who is busy today with the
       In the domain of purely pictorial problems, Futurism   ruler,  in a spirit as taut as a compass  ... we con­  morrow is busy doing nothing.  And he who tomorrow
      has not gone further than the renovated effort to fix   struct our work as the universe constructs its own, as   will  bring  us  nothing  of what he has done today is
      on  the  canvas  a  purely  optical  reflex  which  has   the engineer constructs his bridges, as the mathema­  of no use for the future.
      already shown its bankruptcy with the Impressionists.  tician his formula of the orbits.  We know that every­  Today is the deed.
      It is obvious now to every one of us that by the simple   thing has its own essential image; chair, table, lamp,   We will  account  for  it tomorrow.  The past  we  are
      graphic registration of a row of momentarily arrested   telephone, book, house, man  ..• they are all entire   leaving behind as carrion.
      movements, one cannot re-create movement itself. It   worlds  with  their  own  rhythms,  their  own  orbits.   The future we leave to the fortune-tellers,
      makes one think of the  pulse of a dead body.  The   That is why we in creating things take away from them   We take the present day.
      pompous slogan of 'Speed' was played from the hands   the  labels  of  their  owners  ••. all  accidental  and
      of the  Futurists  as  a  great  trump.  We  concede  the   local, leaving only the reality of the constant rhythm   N. Gabo
      sonority of that slogan and we quite see how it can   of the forces in them.       Moscow,                    Noton  Pevsner
      sweep the strongest of the provincials off their feet.                             5 August 1920      2nd State Printing House
      But ask any Futurist how does he imagine 'speed' and   1  Thence in painting we renounce colour as a pic­
      there will emerge a whole arsenal of frenzied automo­  torial element, colour Is the Idealized optical surface
      biles, rattling railway depots, snarled wires, the clank   of objects; an exterior and superficial impression of
       126
   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23