Page 43 - Studio International - January 1973

futurist cause and progressed along a line which emanating from, the human subject. In these
UK commentary eventually led him to abandon futurism studies he is coming close to seeing sensation
altogether in favour of purely cubist works. as matter and to the very important futurist
The current exhibition in Newcastle offers vision of man moved by his universe, a perfect
sufficient evidence, too, that there were a great part of the whole machine.
`FUTURISMO 1909-1919' AT HATTON GALLERY many successful varieties of the futurist vision. Boccioni created in these early figurative
UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE NOV. 13 — DEC. 8, Perhaps the greatest of these successes was the studies a way of destroying space — something
AND AT THE ROYAL SCOTTISH ACADEMY, work of Boccioni. His early (1910) States of Carra was to do later, but which Boccioni does
EDINBURGH DEC. 16 — JAN. 14; '40'S DECADE' AT Mind studies successfully follow two early more successfully — in his abstract studies of
THE WHITECHAPEL GALLERY FROM NOV. I — futurist goals : of depicting PURE dynamism, by depicting states of emotion as
NOV. 26; GILBERT & GEORGE AT THE D'OFFAY SENSATION and indicating the multiple physical properties. This destruction of space
COUPER GALLERY FROM NOV. 21 — DEC. 8; visual and emotional impressions which force was to lead to an increased concentration on
BARRY FLANAGAN AT THE ROWAN GALLERY FROM themselves upon the person at any one moment matter, in studies which are so compact that the
NOV. 10 — DEC. 7. — and place. In these studies Boccioni uses the object 'decomposes' before the eyes. In this way
expression of psychic energy developed by Boccioni was able to make totally clear the
The idea of presenting an exhibition of Italian Munch in such pictures as The Scream, but he pent-up kinetic powers of the object. His really
futurism in Newcastle is touched with the kind has managed to eliminate the sentimental great paintings, Dynamism of a Human Body,
of irony that seems somehow deliberate. The possibilities of those radiating lines suggesting Dynamism of a Cyclist, Plastic Forms of a Horse,
brave vision of the future of man in the machine grief, horror, etc., by removing them one all have this claustrophobic containment of an
age appears slightly foolish in the context of this step further from their human context and energy which is about to break at every point,
beaten centre of 19th-century industry, now depicting them as acting upon, rather than and which invests matter with miraculous
so past its future and eloquent in its
denunciation of the evil that an industrial city
can inflict on its inhabitants. In the
half-devastated centre of the city and facing the
gallery which houses this exhibition, there is the
immense, new-spired Civic Centre, luridly
flood-lit with purple light, an image of progress
as heroic and anachronistic as the futurist ideal
itself.
Futurism was the first movement in art to
identify itself consciously and totally with
technological change. The futurists saw speed
and change both literally and in historical
terms as a source of energy, and they affected
to believe that their work was as experimental
and disposable as the brave new machines that
surrounded them. And yet the images they
produced survived their programmes. They
speak even more eloquently in this exhibition
than do the futurists' own extravagant
claims for the movement.
The permanence of the futurist achievement
is evident in this exhibition not only from those
major works which have been grudgingly
acknowledged as experiments which have 'come
off', but in the many pen and ink drawings of
Carra and the small studies for sculptures
by Boccioni. In all of these there is proof that
the bombastic propositions of futurist art put
forward in the manifestoes have genuinely led
to something new and remarkable and fine in
themselves. Marinetti with his fizzing opera
buffo declarations seems to have worked like
that famous vortex of energy, the point of
maximum efficiency and power from which
inspiration flew out like sparks. Phrases of his,
haphazardly loosed, were picked up and used as
genuine leads by the very talented group of
artists around him. Of these the most successful
directions were taken by Boccioni, Balla and
Carra. Only Severini of the group maintained
a Parisian distance. He took fewer risks for the

G. Severini
Blue Dancer 1912
Oil on canvas with sequins, 61 x 46 cm.
Coll: Gianni Mattioli, Milan
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