Modern Art Movements: Futurism, Cubism, Expressionism, and More
Futurism
Futurism was founded by the Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who published his first manifesto in Paris in 1909. It represented a total rupture with the past, expressing admiration for the mechanical civilization and technical progress: machines, speed, and great inventions like the train and the airplane. A consequence of this was the disregard for human subjects and fundamentals. To achieve the ideal of free words, Futurists did not punctuate the text and deleted adjectives.
Cubism
Cubism was created by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1913 as a derivation of Cubism Victorica (clubs). Its starting point is the decomposition of reality to recompose it freely through simultaneous collage. It is flat and attaches great importance to the disposition of typographical visuals, as in Apollinaire’s famous calligrams, whose verses are drawn from what they describe.
Expressionism
Expressionism is a German movement with two basic assumptions: 1) Internal realities are more important than external ones, not to explain the world as the artist sees it. 2) Its purpose is to produce a strong impression on the public. It was developed especially in drama and poetry and had a major influence on cinema.
Dadaism
Dadaism was founded in 1916 by the Romanian Tristan Tzara. It is the most destructive avant-garde movement. The name comes from the word given to try to play the infantile. It is an absolute negation of everything, including art and literature, more about destroying than creating. Dadaism defends mockery and corrosive humor and creates an incoherent speech that reflects human contradictions. One way of expressing this is the famous recipe by Tzara to write a poem: a newspaper, chance, scissors, and glue.
Surrealism
Surrealism is the most important movement. It was first shown in Paris in 1924, signed by André Breton. Surrealist art meant to renew and change lives, and this requires access to a reality that is in the subconscious, freeing the individual from acting out in the by moral and social conventions. As a method to access the subconscious, it proposes automatic writing, which is to write the dictation of thought without it being controlled by reason and without any aesthetic or moral concern.
This results in a language that will have a charge of suggestions. It is illogical but also uses the visionary surrealist image. It uses metaphors based not on logic but on free association of ideas. One of the most frequent themes of Surrealism is the world of dreams. Surrealism influenced poets such as Alberti, Lorca, and Neruda.
Ultraism and Creationism
Ultraism and Creationism are two Spanish avant-garde movements that occurred between 1918-1923. They are characterized by a rejection of the sentimental, the tragic, and the intimate. They were no longer singing about love, death, or God, not even man.
Creationism
Creationism emerged with the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro, who reached Spain in 1918. Creationism states that the literary work is independent of the world. The poet does not have to imitate nature and eliminate all descriptive and anecdotal elements. Most important authors: Juan Larrea, Gerardo Diego. Characteristics: 1) The signs of punctuation are removed. 2) Juxtaposition of images without any connection. 3) The poet must create the poem spontaneously as nature creates the tree.
Ultraism
Ultraism has enough in common with the authors of Creationism. They participate in its gestation, such as Jorge Luis Borges, and Eugenio Montes. The magazine Grecia is the first manifesto in 1919, where this relates to the Italian Futurist movement and the main actor of Dadaism. Its main figure was Guillermo de la Torre. Characteristics: 1) Influence of Cubism, Futurism, and Dada. 2) Striking images and metaphors from the film world of sport and technical progress. 3) Elimination of rhyme. 4) New typographical arrangement of words. 5) Use of proparoxytone jargon and neologisms.