Filippo Marinettis Futurist Manifesto

Filippo Marinettis Futurist Manifesto Every time art movements replace each other, a new, â€Å"fresh† tendency rebuts and refutes the old one with enthusiasm and categoricity. However, there is hardly any movement in the history of art that demonstrated as strong aspiration for destroying the â€Å"old† and bring the â€Å"new† as Futurism.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Having emerged in the early 20th century, Futurism absorbed the tense and contradictive spirit hovering in the air of progressive Western European capitals. One of the first artistic personalities who managed to grasp this spirit was Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti, an Italian poet who is today considered one of the â€Å"fathers† of Futurism. In his Futurist Manifesto published in 1909 in Paris (Marinetti 1909), Marinetti formulated the essence and the purpose of the Futurist mo vement and thus outlined the â€Å"ethical code† of a New Artist, a Futurist. Playing on the contrast of new and old, courage and cowardice, a human and nature, freedom and captivity, Marinetti not only expressed the spirit of his epoch, but also gave direction to it. The contrast of â€Å"old† and â€Å"new† is the core of the Futurist movement. The term â€Å"Futurism† itself carries a certain paradox: on the one hand, its name includes the allusion to the future; on the other hand, this term was used in the beginning of the 20th century to denote not the art of the â€Å"future†, but the art of â€Å"today†. Probably, this paradox was the issue that pleased Futurist poets and artists of that time who had opportunity to claim that they had overthrown the past and overstepped the present. We may notice this when familiarizing ourselves with numerous works of visual art, cinema, literature, music and architecture of that period. Futurists do not mourn over the glory of antiquity or Renaissance; they look at the world around them with excitement: cars, airplanes, huge buildings constructed of concrete and glass become the objects of panegyric and poetical description. Thus, together with the contrast â€Å"old/new†, Futurists create the contrast of â€Å"human† and â€Å"nature† where a human is in the superior position. Instead of admiring the scenery with a bird flying in the sky, a human of the new epoch soars with his metal wings. This message and this rhetoric take their origin in Futurist Manifesto. â€Å"Why should we look back, when what we want is to break down the mysterious doors of the Impossible: Time and Space died yesterday†, says Marinetti (1909), and a reader may even imagine the passion and enthusiasm put by the author in his words.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Marinetti outlines the new notion of beauty that has come to replace its old â€Å"version†, â€Å"†¦the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed† (ibid.); he says, it is time to free Italy from the heritage of the past that burdens it, from those â€Å"professors, archaeologists, ciceroni and antiquarians† (ibid.). Marinetti is against stagnation, stability and tradition, but for a breakthrough, experiment and innovation. Thus, a modern person cannot enjoy the beauty â€Å"preserved† in museums; the beauty of a â€Å"roaring car† is more comprehensive and dear to a human of the beginning of the 20th century. This is what we can see in the Futurists’ paintings: experiments with textures, techniques and shapes help to express the spirit of the time and thus help the â€Å"new† overthrow the â€Å"old† and â€Å"ascend the throne†. Painters try to depict speed and energy, l ight and sound; composition seems not harmonious and well-balanced, but unsteady, disturbing. Particularly, we may allude to the paintings by Umberto Boccioni, Marinetti’s compatriot and â€Å"confederate† in the artistic movement. Boccioni’s The Street Enters the House (1911) is the bright illustration for the statements of Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto: the author depicts speed, energy and noise my means of colors, composition and numerous details, blurring and overlapping. Futurist poets tend to experiment with a word, a sound, a sentence. Their desire is to break the rules that exist in the traditional, â€Å"ordinary† language. Below, the fragment of Marinetti’s poem Aeropoem for Agello: 700 Km an Hour (1939) illustrates these tendencies (in Bohn 2005, 14): Suddenly far from the earthly feminine tic-toc Agello Castoldi and I gulp down the beautiful misty lake at 200-300 metres triumphantly joining those illustrious fliers who have flow n 700 kilometres an hour Uuuaaaa Uuuuaaaaa Uuaaaaaaaa However, in Futurist Manifest, the notion of the new beauty is inseparable from the notion of struggle, â€Å"Except in struggle, there is no more beauty† (ibid.).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Filippo Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Marinetti operates one more contrast: â€Å"freedom† versus â€Å"slavery†; freedom should be brought to the society, which implies to overcome â€Å"every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice† (ibid.), and to art where the museums, libraries and other â€Å"vestiges of the past† should be destroyed (ibid.). To free the society from the state of sleep and constraint, Futurists need to come with courage and violence. â€Å"Art, in fact, can be nothing but violence, cruelty, and injustice†, say Marinetti (ibid.). This spirit was impregnated Futurist wo rks of literature and art. The above mentioned painting by Boccioni â€Å"radiates† the energy of riot, anxiety, violence, penetration and destruction. In Luigi Russolo’s paintings, we may also see violence and aggression (for example, Impressions of Bombardment (Shrapnels and Grenades), 1926). Not accidentally, Futurism is to some extent considered one of the forerunners of Fascism. Promotion of changes brought by means of destruction and violence is neighboring with nationalism. Yet in Futurist Manifesto, we see the nationalistic tint in the author’s narration, â€Å"It is from Italy that we launch through the world this violently upsetting incendiary manifesto of ours†¦ For too long has Italy been a dealer in second-hand clothes† (Marinetti, 1909). Thus, besides seeing Futurism as a solid, integrated movement in art, we also may notice its connection with the tendencies that existed in politics and society of that time. The ideas declared in Futur ist Manifesto found their development during the next decades and had crucial impact on the history of the mankind. We see one more illustration of how art and the real life are always connected. References Boccioni, Umberto. The Street Enters the House. 1911. Sprengel-Museum, Hannover. Bohn, Willard. 2005. Italian Futurist Poetry: Edited and Translated by Willard Bohn. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Marinetti, Filippo T. 1909. Futurist Manifesto. Le Figaro 20 February 1909. CSCS.Umich.Edu. Web.Advertising Looking for essay on art and design? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Russolo, Luigi. Impressions of Bombardment (Shrapnels and Grenades). 1926. Collection of the Comune di Portogruaro.

The Abolitionists, Who They Were And How They Became Influential

The Abolitionists, Who They Were And How They Became Influential The term abolitionist generally refers to a dedicated opponent to slavery in the early 19th century America. The abolitionist movement developed slowly in the early 1800s. A movement to abolish slavery gained political acceptance in Britain in the late 1700s. The British abolitionists, led by William Wilberforce in the early 19th century, campaigned against Britains role in the slave trade and sought to outlaw slavery in British colonies. At the same time, Quaker groups in America began working in earnest to abolish slavery in the United States. The first organized group formed to end slavery in America began in Philadelphia in 1775, and the city was a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment in the 1790s, when it was the capital of the United States. Though slavery was successively outlawed in the northern states in the early 1800s, the institution of slavery was firmly entrenched in the South. And agitation against slavery came to be regarded as a major source of discord between regions of the country. In the 1820s anti-slavery factions began spreading from New York and Pennsylvania to Ohio, and the early beginnings of the abolitionist movement began to be felt. At first, the opponents to slavery were considered far outside the mainstream of political thought and abolitionists had little real impact on American life. In the 1830s the movement gathered some momentum. William Lloyd Garrison began publishing The Liberator in Boston, and it became  the most prominent abolitionist newspaper. A pair of wealthy businessmen in New York City, the Tappan brothers, began to finance abolitionist activities. In 1835 the American Anti-Slavery Society began a campaign, funded by the Tappans, to send anti-slavery pamphlets into the South. The pamphlet campaign led to enormous controversy, which included bonfires of seized abolitionist literature being burned in the streets of Charleston, South Carolina. The pamphlet campaign was seen to be impractical. Resistance to the pamphlets galvanized the South against any anti-slavery sentiment, and it made abolitionists in the North realize that it would not be safe to campaign against slavery on southern soil. The northern abolitionists tried other strategies, most prominently the petitioning of Congress. Former president John Quincy Adams, serving in his post-presidency as a Massachusetts congressman, became a prominent anti-slavery voice on Capitol Hill. Under right of petition in the U.S. Constitution, anyone, including slaves, could send petitions to Congress. Adams led a movement to introduce petitions seeking the freedom of slaves, and it so inflamed members of the House of Representatives from the slave states that discussion of slavery was banned in the House chamber. For eight years one of the main battles against slavery took place on Capitol Hill, as Adams battled against what came to be known as the gag rule. In the 1840s a former slave, Frederick Douglass, took to the lecture halls and spoke about his life as a slave. Douglass became a very forceful anti-slavery advocate, and even spent time speaking out against American slavery in Britain and Ireland. By the late 1840s the Whig Party was splitting over the issue of slavery. And disputes which arose when the U.S. acquired enormous territory at the end of the Mexican War brought up the issue of which new states and territories would be slave or free. The Free Soil Party arose to speak out against slavery, and while it didnt became a major political force, it did put the issue of slavery into the mainstream of American politics. Perhaps what brought the abolitionist movement to the forefront more than anything else was a very popular novel, Uncle Toms Cabin. Its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, a committed abolitionist, was able to craft a tale with sympathetic characters who were either slaves or touched by the evil of slavery. Families would often read the book aloud in their living rooms, and the novel did much to pass abolitionist thought into American homes. Prominent abolitionists included: William Lloyd GarrisonFrederick DouglassAngelina Grimkà © and her sister Sarah Grimkà ©Wendell PhillipsJohn BrownHarriet TubmanHarriet Beecher Stowe The term, of course, comes from the word abolish, and particularly refers to those who wanted to abolish slavery. The Underground Railroad, the loose network of people who assisted escaped slaves to freedom in the northern United States or Canada, could be considered part of the abolitionist movement.