Futurism and Futurists: Look Back At the Time of the Great Development of the Western World

Positing all that had come before them as outdated relics at odds with the new technological developments of the 20th Century, the Italian Futurists sought to create a world in which the new utterly destroyed that which was old, and in their eyes, decaying. The most influential character in the development of the Futurist movement was the Italian, Filippo Marinetti. Much of the Futurists’ initial contributions to art were literary manifestos, and while these pointed out the glories and virtues of modernism, much of their content actually devoted a great deal of attention to destroying the (perceived) old order of things.

In a country long languishing under outdated practices and technologies, many Italians within the Futurist movement assumed that the only saving grace for their poor nation would be modern and efficient technology. These notions, of course, aimed at the heart of centralization, but they were far from being idealized communistic notions. Rather, the Futurists would be great supporters of the Italian version of Fascism, whose results would soon prove to be disastrous and "all too" efficiently "modern".

The Futurists also attacked traditional art forms as contributing to an outdated loyalty to archaic socio-cultural, intellectual and artistic notions. In short, anything that extolled the virtues of modernity and development, while at the same time destroying the old, was considered to have its own merit within the Futurist movement. Today, we can look back at this time of great - sometimes (in the case of war) "too" great - development of the Western world through the use of our own quintessentially modern device, the Internet. Much of what we find is still of considerable interest and importance.