Futurist conditions : imagining time in Italian futurism / David S. Mather.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mather, David (Art historian), author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Futurism (Art)--Italy.

Futurism (Art).

Motion in art.

Art and photography.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (231 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations

Edition:

First edition.

Distribution:

[London, England] : Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020

Place of Publication:

London [England] : Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2020.

Summary:

"Italian futurism visualized diverse types of motion, which had been rooted in pervasive kinetic and vehicular forces generated during a period of dramatic modernization in the early twentieth century. Yet, as David Mather's sweeping intellectual and art historical scholarship demonstrates, it was the camera-not the engine-that proved to be the primary invention against which many futurist ideas and practices were measured. Overturning several misconceptions about Italian futurism's interest in the disruptive and destructive effects of technology, Futurist Conditions provides a refreshing update to that historical narrative by arguing that the formal and conceptual approaches by futurist visual artists reoriented the possibly dehumanizing effects of mechanized imagery toward more humanizing, spiritual aims. Through its sustained analysis of the artworks and writings of Umberto Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, and the Bragaglia brothers, dating to the first decade after the movement's founding in 1909, Mather's account of their obsession with kinetic motion pivots around a 1913 debate on the place and relative import of photography among traditional artistic mediums-a debate culminating in the expulsion of the Bragaglias, but one that also prompted a range of productive responses by other futurist artists to world-changing social, political, and economic conditions"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

List of Plates

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Temporal Imagination

1. The Bragaglias' Unreality

2. Balla's Transformation

3. Boccioni's Body-Buildings

Conclusion: Collective Condition

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781501343117

1501343114

9781501343100

1501343106

9781501343094

1501343092

9781501343124

1501343122