Fortunato Depero -Futurism ( Time)

Futurism 

An example of futurism painting by Carlo Carra

Futurism was founded in Italy in 1909 by the Italian poet and editor Filippo Marinetti. On the 20th of February of the same year, Marinetti published the manifesto of this new modern art on the newspaper 'Le Figaro'. Marinetti in the manifesto expressed the words "time and space died yesterday",his aim was to discard anything static, and irrelevant art, but celebrate the change that was brought by the industrial revolution. Although Futurism is an expression of movement and speed it was also a destruction of time. During the early 20th century there was the industrial revolution, machines, factories, cities expanding all of these made the life easier and consuming less time. Futurists loved the speed, noise, pollution, machines, technology, speed and movement and the industrial age started to take over to a new modern life which brought innovative and original art but also in society. Most of the paintings and sculptors expressed movement and dynamics of the natural and man-made forms. Futurism influenced other movements such as Art Deco, Surrealism and Dada amongst other. The French artist Marcel Duchamp adapted the use of modern materials and techniques. 

Fortunato Depero

Fortunati Depero

Vanity Fair Cover

One of the major futurist Italian artists was Fortunato Depero who was born in 1892, Italy. In 1915 joined the Futurist movement but before from social realism, symbolism till this movement. His inspirations came from Boccioni's sculptures and exhibited a series of drawings. Depero was the first and last Italian Futurist who moved to New York, and during his stay he designed many front covers for glossy magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, although years passed they are still popular magazines nowadays.His works mostly consisted of paintings and advertisement posters like the Campari advert. In Roverto, Italy there is  an institution dedicated to Futurists works of other artists which contains over 3000 paintings and 7500 manuscripts about Futurism. 

New Futurist Theatre CompanyPoster, 1924 

This poster was designed to advertise the opening of the New Futurist Theatre.Although Futurism is about movement and speed, time is an important factor because this movement originated during the industrial revolution and the machine age. Time brought change and revolution. Regarding the poster I assume that it is a robot figure made up from factory chimneys with smoke coming out. It is a diagonal composition with repetitive angular forms that represent the kinetic energy and repetition of movement following a rythm. The number on the body may have different interpretations if it's meaning, it could be the year 2310 or the date and month of the event, maybe Depero was imagining how the futurist world will look like, robots talking, technology at it's best, and us human will become dependent on technology. 

Campari advertisement

Blanchard,D.,2009.'Time and Space Died Yesterday," Futurism at 100. Conterlight's Peculiars, [blog] 30 July. Available at: < http://counterlightsrantsandblather1.blogspot.com/2009/07/beautiful-ideas-that-kill-futurism-at.html > [Accessed 27 October 2013] 

Nicolas Pioch, 2002. Futurism [online ] Available at:< http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/futurism/ >
[Accessed 27 October 2013] 

Fortunato Depero: Bali Plastici ,date unknown, Deparo, Futurism and More [online] Available at: <  http://www.etc.cmu.edu/projects/balli-plastici/learn/ > 

[Accessed 27 October 2013]