Because I had strolled over to buy a newspaper at a kiosk hard by the
Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, I discovered an announcement that the
Italian Futurists were holding an exhibition in De Roos Gallery on the
Rokindam. This was early in September, 1912. What a chance, I thought,
to compare the new with the old. After that glorious trinity,
Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Vermeer, hanging in the Rijks, what a
piquant contrast to study the new-fangled heresies and fantastic
high-kicking of the Futurists! This group, consisting of five Italian
painters in company with the poet Marinetti as a self-constituted chef
d'ecole, is perfectly agreed that all the old conventions of pictorial
art have outlived their usefulness; that drawing, colour, perspective,
harmonious composition must walk the plank as far as they are
concerned; in a word, classic, romantic, impressionistic art is
doomed; only symbolism will endure; for symbolism only is there a
future. Signor Marinetti, who coined the hideous word, "Futurism,"
goes still further. Literature, too, must throw off the yoke of
syntax. The adjective must be abolished, the verb of the infinite
should be always employed; the adverb must follow the adjective; every
substantive should have its double; away with punctuation; you must
"orchestrate" your language (this outrivals Rene Ghil); the personal
pronoun is also to disappear with the rest of the outmoded literary
baggage, which was once so useful to such moribund mediocrities (the
phrase is of Marinetti's making) as Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Alfieri;
even D'Annunzio is become a moss-covered reactionary.
I purposely mention Marinetti and his manifesto for the reason that
this movement in painting and sculpture is decidedly "literary," the
very accusation of which makes the insurgents mightily rage. For
example, I came across in _De Kunst_, a Dutch art publication in
Amsterdam, a specimen of Marinetti's sublimated prose, the one page of
which is supposed to contain more suggestive images and ideas than a
library written in the old-fashioned manner. Here are a few lines
(Battle is the title and the prose is in French):
"Bataille. Poids-odeur. Midi 3/4 flutes glapissement embrasement toumb
toumb alarme gargaresch eraquement erepitation marche," etc.
This parrot lingo, a mere stringing together of verbs and nouns,
reminds one of the way the little African child was taught to say,
dog, man, horse, cow, pump. When at Turin in March, 1910, they threw
rotten eggs at Marinetti, in the Chiarella Theatre, the audience was
but venting its feelings of indignation because of such silly
utterances. Baudelaire, patterning after Poe and Bertrand, fashioned
poems in prose and created images of beauty; following him Huysmans
added a novel nuance and made the form still more concentrated. But
Signor Marinetti--there are no ideas in his prose and his images are
nil--writes as if he were using a cable code, a crazy one at that. How
far he is responsible for the "aesthetic" of the Futurist art I don't
know. If he is responsible at all then he has worked much mischief,
for several of the five painters are men of unquestionable ability,
skilled brush workers and of an artistic sincerity that is without
suspicion. Mind you, I don't say all of the groups; there are
charlatans who hang on to the coat-tails of every talented man or are
camp-followers in every movement. These five painters: Umberto
Boccioni (Milan); Carlo D. Carra (Milan); Luigi Russolo (Milan);
Giacomo Balla (Rome), and Gino Severini (Paris) do not paint for
money. The pictures in this exhibition are not for sale; indeed, I
doubt if the affair pays expenses, for it has travelled far; from
Turin and Milan and Rome, to Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam. It will
be in New York soon, and then look out for a repetition of the Playboy
of the Western World scandal. Some of the pictures are very
provocative.
Naturally the antithesis of old and new was unescapable the chilly
September afternoon that I entered the "Roos" gallery. Fresh from The
Milk Jug, that miracle in paint by Vermeer (formerly of the Jan Six
Collection); from the Rembrandt Night Watch (which was not much
damaged by the maniac who slashed the right knee of the principal
figure); from the two or three splendid portraits by Frans Hals; from
the Elizabeth Bas and the Stallmeesters by Rembrandt--from all these
masterpieces of great paint, poetry, humour, humanity, I confess the
transition to the wild and whirling kaleidoscopes called pictures by
these ferocious Futurists was too sudden for my eyes and
understanding. It was some time before I could orient myself
optically. If you have ever peered through one of those pasteboard
cylinders dear to childhood, you will catch a tithe of my early
sensations. All that I had read of the canvases was mere colourless
phrase-making. After the first shudder had passed, the magnetism, a
hideous magnetism, drew you to the walls, the lunatic patterns began
to yield up vague meanings; arabesques that threatened one's sanity
became almost intelligible. The yelling walls seemed to sing more in
tune, the flaring tones softened a trifle, there was method in all
this madness and presently you discovered that there was more method
than madness, and that way critical madness lay. You are not in the
least converted to this arbitrary and ignominious splashing of raw
tints, but you are interested--you linger, you study and then you fall
to reading the philosophy of the movement. It is the hour of your
aperitive, l'heure exquise, when you take your departure, and out on
the noisy Rokindam, not far from the Central railway station, you rub
your eyes and then note that the very chaos you resented in the
canvases of the Futurists is in the streets--which are being repaved.
Snorting motor-cars and rumbling busses go by, people seem to be
walking up inclined planes, the houses lean over and their windows
leer and beckon to you; the sky is like a stage cloth and sweeps the
roofs; you hurry to your hotel and in strong tea you drown your
memories of the Italian Futurists.
It is only fair to give their side of the case. This I shall condense,
as the exuberant lyricism and defiant dithyramb soon became
monotonous. They write like very young and enthusiastic chaps, and
they are for the most part mature men and experienced painters.
Luckily for their public, Signor Marinetti and his friends did not
adopt his Siamese telegraphic style in their printed programme. They
begin by stating that they will sing the love of danger, the habit of
energy and boldness. The essential elements of their poetry will be
courage, daring, and rebellion. Literature has hitherto glorified
serene immobility, ecstasy, and sleep; they will extol aggressive
movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step, the somersault,
the box on the ear, the fisticuff. They declare that the world's
splendour has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A
racing car, its frame adorned by great pipes, like snakes with
explosive breath, a roaring motor-car, which looks as though running
on shrapnel, is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace
in the Louvre. Note just here the speed-mania motive. There is no more
beauty except in strife. No masterpiece without aggressiveness. Poetry
must be a violent onslaught upon the unknown forces, commanding them
to bow before man. Now there is nothing particularly new in this.
Great poetry is dynamic as it is also reflective (the Futurists call
the latter "static"). They say they stand on the extreme promontory of
the centuries. Why, they ask, should we look behind us, when we have
to break into the mysterious portals of the impossible? Time and space
died yesterday. Already we live in the absolute, since we have already
created speed, eternal and ever present. This rigmarole of metaphysics
betrays the influence of the Henri Bergson philosophy, the philosophy
of rhythm and rhythmic motion. It is just as original; _i. e._, not
original at all. Mother Earth is still spinning through space at the
gait originally imparted to her by the sun's superior force. Mankind
on her outer rind spins with her. Because we have invented steam and
electric cars, we must not arrogate to ourselves the discovery of
speed. What has speed to do with painting on a flat surface, painting
in two dimensions of space? Wait a bit! We are coming to the
application of rhythm to paint.
The Futurists wish to glorify war--the only health-giver of the
world--militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the anarchist,
the beautiful ideas that kill, the contempt for woman. They wish to
destroy the museums, the libraries (unlucky Mr. Carnegie!), to fight
moralism, feminism, and all opportunistic and utilitarian measures.
Museums are for them cemeteries of art; to admire an old picture is to
pour our sensitiveness into a funeral urn, instead of casting it
forward in violent gushes of creation and action. So set fire to the
shelves of libraries! Deviate the course of canals to flood the
cellars of museums! Seize pickaxes and hammers! Sap the foundations of
the antique cities! "We stand upon the summit of the world and once
more we cast our challenge to the stars." Thus F. T. Marinetti, editor
of _Poesia_.
The manifesto of the new crowd is too lengthy to reproduce; but here
are a few of its tenets:
1st: That imitation must be despised, and all originality glorified.
(How novel!)
2d: That it is essential to rebel against the tyranny of the terms
"harmony" and "good taste" as being too elastic expressions, by the
help of which it is easy to demolish the works of Rembrandt, of Goya,
and of Rodin.
3d: That the art-critics are useless or harmful.
4th: That all subjects previously used must be swept aside in order to
express our whirling life of steel, of pride, of fever, and of speed.
5th: That the name of "madman" with which it is attempted to gag all
innovators, should be looked upon as a title of honour.
6th: That innate complementariness is an absolute necessity in
painting, just as free metre in poetry or polyphony in music. Oh, ass
who wrote this! Polyphony is not a modern invention. A man named Bach,
Johann Sebastian Bach, wrote fugues of an extraordinary beauty and
clearness in their most complicated polyphony. But polyphony (or many
voices) is new in painting, and to the Futurists must be conceded the
originality of attempting to represent a half dozen different things
at the same time on canvas--a dog's tail, a woman's laughter, the
thoughts of a man who has had a "hard night," the inside of a
motor-bus, and the ideas of its passengers concerning its bumping
wheels, and what-not!
7th: That universal dynamism must be rendered in painting as a dynamic
sensation.
8th: That in the manner of rendering nature, the essential is
sincerity and purity (more copy-book maxims for us!).
9th: That movement and light destroy the materiality of bodies (a
truism in art well known to Watteau, Rembrandt, Turner, and latterly,
to Claude Monet and the earlier group of Impressionists). And now for
the milk in the cocoanut.
We fight, concludes the manifesto: 1st: Against the bituminous tints
by which it is attempted to obtain the patina of tone upon modern
pictures. (The chief objection against this statement is its absolute
superfluousness. The Impressionists forty years ago attacked
bituminous painting and finally drove it out; now it is coming back as
a novelty. The Futurists are gazing backward.) 2d: Against the
superficial and elementary archaism founded upon flat tints, which, by
imitating the linear technique of the Egyptians, reduces painting to a
powerless synthesis both childish and grotesque. 3d: Against the false
claims of belonging to the future put forward by the Secessionists and
the Independents, who have installed new academies no less trite and
attached to routine than the preceding ones. 4th: We demand for ten
years the total suppression of the nude in painting.
There are thirty-four pictures in the show, the catalogue of which is
a curiosity. Boccioni's The Street Enters the Home has a note in the
catalogue which points out that the painter does not limit himself to
what he sees in the square frame of the window as would a simple
photographer, but he also reproduces what he would see by looking out
on every side from the balcony. Isn't this lucid? But you ought to see
the jumble in the canvas caused by the painter casting aside the chief
prerogative of an artist, the faculty of selection, or, rather, as
Walter Pater puts it, the "tact of omission."
There is the motion of moonlight in one canvas and in No. 24, by
Russolo, entitled Rebellion, there is an effort to delineate--better
say express, as the art of delineation is here in abeyance--the
collision of two forces, that of the revolutionary element made up of
enthusiasm and red lyricism against the force of inertia and
reactionary resistance of tradition. The angles are the vibratory
waves of the former force in motion. The perspective of the houses is
destroyed just as a boxer is bent double by receiving a blow in the
wind (refined image!). As this picture is purely symbolical, it is not
open to objections; but isn't it rather amusing?
Memory of a Night, by Russolo (No. 23), is "a fantastic impression
produced not by line but by colour." An elongated insect or snail--is
it a man or a grasshopper?--is in the first plane; back of him is a
girl's face with pleading eyes; an explosion of light in the
background is evidently intended for an electric lamp; the rest is
chaos.
The Milliner (No. 32) by Severini, the painter calls: "An arabesque of
the movement produced by the twinkling colours and iridescence of the
frills and furbelows on show; the electric light divides the scene
into defined zones. A study of simultaneous penetration." The deathly
grin of the modiste is about the only "simultaneous penetration" that
I could see in the canvas.
As confused as is No. 27, The Pan-Pan Dance at the Monico, by
Severini, there are some vital bits, excellent modelling, striking
detail, though as a whole, it is hard to unravel; the point d'appui is
missing; the interest is nowhere focussed, though the dancer woman
soon catches the eye. No doubt a crowded supper room in a Continental
cafe, the white napery, variegated colours of the women's attire, the
movement and blinding glare of the lights are a chaotic blur when you
first open your eyes upon them; but the human eye with its almost
infinite capacity for adaptation soon resolves disorder into order,
formlessness into form. The trouble with the Futurist is that he
catches the full force of the primal impression, then later loads it
with his own subjective fancies. The outcome is bound to be a riddle.
I confess without hesitation there are several pictures in the
exhibition which impressed me. Power is power, no matter the strange
airs it may at times assume. Browning's Sordello, despite its numerous
obscure passages, is withal a work of high purpose, it always stirs
the imagination. I found myself staring at Carra's Funeral of the
Anarchist Galli and wondering after all whether a conflict shouldn't
be represented in a conflicting manner. Zola reproached both De
Goncourt and Flaubert for their verbal artistry. "Vulgar happenings,"
he said, "should be presented in the bluntest fashion." And then he
contradicted himself in practice by attempting to write like Hugo and
Flaubert. Signor Carra, who probably witnessed the street row at the
funeral of Galli between the students and the police, sets before us
in all its vivacity or rhythm--or rhythms--the fight. It is a real
fight. And while I quite agree with Edgar Degas, who said he could
make a crowd out of four or five figures in a picture, it is no
reflection on Carra's power to do the same with a dozen or more. A
picture as full of movement and the clash of combatants as is the
battle section of the Richard Strauss Symphony, A Hero's Life. Realism
is the dominating factor in both works. The cane and club swinging
sympathisers of the anarchist are certainly vital.
In what then consists the originality of the Futurists? Possibly their
blatant claim to originality. The Primitives, Italian and Flemish, saw
the universe with amazing clearness; their pictorial metaphysics was
clarity itself; their mysticism was never muddy; all nature was
settled, serene, and brilliantly silhouetted. But mark you! they, too,
enjoyed depicting a half-dozen happenings on the same canvas. Fresh
from a tour through the galleries of Holland, Belgium, and France,
after a special study of the Primitives, I quite understand what the
Futurists are after. They emulate the innocence of the eye
characteristic of the early painters, but despite their strong will
they cannot recover the blitheness and sweetness, the native wood-note
wild, nor recapture their many careless moods. They weave the pattern
closer, seeking to express in paint a psychology that is only possible
in literature. And they endeavour to imitate music with its haunting
suggestiveness, its thematic vagueness, its rhythmic swiftness and
splendour of tonalities. In vain. No picture can spell many moods
simultaneously, nor paint soul-states successively within one frame.
These painters have mistaken their vocation. They should have been
musicians or writers, or handle the more satisfactory, if less subtle,
cinematograph.
Will there ever be a new way of seeing as well as representing life,
animate and inanimate? Who shall say? The Impressionists, working on
hints from Watteau, Rembrandt, Turner, gave us a fresh view of the
universe. Rhythm in art is no new thing. In the figures of El Greco as
in the prancing horses of Gericault, rhythm informs every inch of the
canvas. The Futurists are seeking a new synthesis, and their work is
far from synthetic; it is decomposition--in the painter's sense of the
word--carried to the point of distraction. Doubtless each man has a
definite idea when he takes up his brush, but all the king's horses
and all the king's men can't make out that idea when blazoned on the
canvas. The Futurists may be for the future, but not for to-day's
limited range of vision.