FUTURISM & CONSTRUCTIVISM

1909 - Late 1930s

Within a single decade of the early 20th Century, we had one group of passionate artists in Italy embracing war and fascism as the healing salve for society’s ills, and another group of equally passionate artists in Russia embracing collectivism and communism as the answers. It appears the artistic mind is not ideologically anchored. Both movements were banished after actual communists, fascists and Nazis took over in Russia, Germany and Italy. They did, however, serve to expand modern art beyond traditional forms.

Futurism

In Italy, fascism found a willing partner in a group of artists fascinated with machines, war, and advanced technology. The original Futurist Manifesto presented war as the only way civilizations could progress. The avant-garde group of artists who formed the Futurism movement were led by Filippo Marinetti, who captured their creed when he said: “We want to fight ferociously against the fanatical, unconscious and snobbish religion of the past, which is nourished by the evil influence of museums.”

No wonder Futurists are often referred to as the first punk rockers.

Futurism art tends to be filled with movement, symbolism and often exhibited a strong Cubist influence. Given their fascination with technology, it is easy to understand their adoption of chronophotography, a technological stepping-stone to film animation. Looking back on this brief movement in art history, the Futurists celebrated technology over nature and opposed earlier

Constructivism

On the opposite end of the political spectrum were the Constructivists, who were inspired by the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia where the movement first bloomed. A group of passionate artists set out to explore the nature of different materials and how they could be used to create artistic constructions. The hope was to improve mass production to better serve a communist society.

In the Constructivist world, the nature of the materials was most important, trumping composition and technique. Their art was dictated by their materials and they usually used geometric forms as foundations. Their allegiance to the true origin of materials has had its most lasting effect in the world of architecture where the call to use natural materials is still strong. Again, the influence of Cubism is easy to see in Constructivist art.

This movement eventually took hold in Germany in 1920, where it was a natural fit with the Bauhaus design movement. German artists saw Constructivism, and its emphasis on using new materials, as a tool of progressive ideas. To some degree it reflected the absolutism of another Russian-based movement, Suprematism. Where Constructivists concentrated on the basic use of materials, Suprematists wanted to reduce art to its most basic form, using primary colors and geometric forms. Both Constructivism and Suprematism were influential in future architectural and design movements.