Futurism was an early 20th century art movement founded in Italy in 1909 that celebrated modernity and technology. Futurist artists sought to capture motion, speed, and dynamism in their works through techniques like fragmented lines and unusual angles. Some key Futurist artists included Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, and Gino Severini, whose works depicted subjects like streets, machines, and urban life with vibrant colors and abstracted forms. While Futurism had its roots in Italy in the early 1900s, it influenced art movements internationally before declining in the 1920s.

2. Futurism
• international art movement
founded in Italy in 1909
• contrast to Romanticism
• speed, noise, machines, pollution,
and cities
• Fearing and attacking technology

3. • published by the poet
Filippo Marinetti on the
front page of the
February 20, 1909,
issue of Le Figaro
• very first manifesto of
this kind.

4. • Futurist painters made the rhythm of
their repetitions of lines
• Inspired by some photographic
experiments, they were breaking
motion into small sequences, and
using the wide range of angles within
a given time-frame all aimed to
incorporate the dimension of time
within the picture

5. • Brilliant colors and
flowing brush strokes
• mixed activism and
artistic research
• died out during the 1920s

6. Examples
• Giacomo Balla (Italian,
1871-1958), Street Light
(Lampada — Studio di
luce),
1909, oil on canvas, 68
3/4 x 45 1/4 inches
(174.7 x 114.7 cm),
Museum of Modern
Art, NY. An extra-large
image of this painting.

7. • Giacomo
Balla, Speeding
Automobile
(Automobile in corsa),
1912, oil on wood, 21
7/8 x 27 1/8 inches
(55.6 x 68.9 cm),
Museum of Modern
Art, NY.

8. • Giacomo Balla, Abstract
Speed — The Car has
Passed,
1913, oil on canvas,
50.2 x 65.4 cm, Tate
Gallery, London.

9. • Giacomo Balla, Figure in
Movement,
1913, pencil and waterc
olor on paper, 22.5 x
29.5 cm, Tehran
Museum of
Contemporary Art, Iran.

10. • Giacomo Balla, Swifts:
Paths of Movement +
Dynamic Sequences
(Volo Rondini Grondaia
Cielo), 1913, oil on canv
as, 38 1/8 x 47 1/4
inches (96.8 x 120
cm), Museum of
Modern Art, NY.

11. • Joseph Stella (American, 1877-
1946), Battle of Lights, Coney
Island, c. 1913-14, oil on canvas,
39 x 29 1/2 inches, Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery and
Sculpture Garden, U of Nebraska,
Lincoln. One of very few
American Futurists, Stella's
contribution to Futurism is
contained in a series of paintings
celebrating the dynamism of New
York's Brooklyn Bridge and Coney
Island. This painting seems to be
a kind of final synthesis of the
series as a whole.

12. • Umberto Boccioni (Italian,
1882-1916), The City Rises
(La città che sale / La ville
qui monte),
1910, oil on canvas, 6 feet 6
1/2 inches x 9 feet 10 1/2
inches (199.3 x 301 cm),
Museum of Modern Art, NY.
Boccioni also produced
a Study for The City Rises,
1910, crayon, chalk
and charcoal on paper, 23
1/8 x 34 1/8 inches (58.8 x
86.7 cm).

13. • Umberto Boccioni, The
Laugh (La risata),
1911, oil on canvas, 43
3/8 x 57 1/4 inches
(199.3 x 301 cm),
Museum of Modern
Art, NY.

14. • Gino Severini
(Italian, 1883-
1966), Dynamic
Hieroglyphic of the Bal
Tabarin, 1912, oil on ca
nvas with sequins, 63
5/8 x 61 1/2 inches
(161.6 x 156.2
cm), Museum of
Modern Art, NY.

15. • Gino Severini, Armored
Train in Action (Train
blindé en action),
1915, oil on canvas, 45
5/8 x 34 7/8 inches
(115.8 x 88.5 cm),
Museum of Modern
Art, NY.

16. • Luigi Russolo
(Italian, 1885-
1947), Dynamism of an
Automobile, 1912-
1913, oil on canvas, 106
x 140 cm, Georges
Pompidou Center, Paris.

17. • Marcel Duchamp, The
Passage from Virgin to
Bride (Le passage de la
vierge à la mariée, July-
August, 1912, oil
on canvas, 23 3/8 x 21
1/4 inches (59.4 x 54
cm), Museum of
Modern Art, NY.