Notes

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. The Futurists practised in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, urban design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, architecture and even gastronomy. Key figures of the movement include the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carra, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Antonio Sant'Elia, Bruno Munari, Benedetta Cappa and Luigi Russolo, and the Russians Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, Igor Severyanin, David Burliuk, Aleksei Kruchenykh and Vladimir Mayakovsky, as well as the Portuguese Almada egreiros. Its members aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past, to glorify modernity. Important works include its seminal piece of the literature, Marinetti's Manifesto of Futurism, as well as Boccioni's sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, and Balla's painting, Abstract Speed + Sound (pictured). Futurism influenced art movements such as Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism, Dada, and to a greater degree, Precisionism, Rayonism, and Vorticism.