Futurism at Tate Modern

This afternoon I met friend L, whom I haven't seen for five years, at the Tate Modern for lunch and we saw the Futurism exhibition while we were there, torrential rain going on outside. The exhibition has received a few critical reviews and I agree that it seemed rather old school, particularly for a movement that celebrated modernity and condemned the archaic world of museums. There could have been more use of film clip or other sound medium.

But nevertheless it was fascinating, comprising some great and some less great art but also a lot of verbal sound and fury in the many lists and manifestos the Futurists, especially poet Marinetti, composed. I guess we don't really do numbered items of poetic belief so ardently any more - you're more likely to get a top ten in a blog post than a writing group. For the Futurists, verything must be forceful, violent even, mechanised, dislocated, and new. Marinetti practised and concerned himself with literature, poetry especially: '6. The poet must spend himself with ardour, splendour and generosity, to swell the enthusiastic fervour of the primordial elements...7. ....poetry must be conceived as a violent attack on unknown forces, to reduce and prostrate them before man.'

Bizarre much of it, and misogynistic stuff some of it - why this relentless Futurist scorn for women? Too soft? Though women got a little more support from Valentine de Saint-Point who in the 1912 'Manifesto for the Futurist Woman' urged woman's participation in the Futurist future: 'Women, become once more as sublimely unjust as every force of nature!' Hmmm. The softer qualities traditionally associated with femininity seem in fact to be equally disparaged by de Saint-Point. The quality of mercy doesn't get much of a look-in. A lot of these shining sentiments were distinctly anti-pity. Reminded me of Ezra Pound's Canto XXX which begins

Compleynt, compleynt I heard upon a day,
Artemis singing, Artemis, Artemis
Agaynst Pity lifted her wail:
Pity causeth the forests to fail,
Pity slayeth my nymphs,
Pity spareth so many an evil thing.

Archaic language but a steely, brutal sentiment. Pound was more closely associated with the contemporary Imagist poets and subsequently Vorticism, the British version of Futurism if you like; but all these early twentieth century movements trumpeted their newness and the clean break from the past and reverence for tradition. Marinetti again: 'Condensed metaphors. Telegraphic images. Maximum vibrations. Nodes of thought.' He may have moved onto painting here - but the thought behind it is very similar to the Imagist agenda and Pound's idea of image being direct representation, powerful focused complex.

Dodgy views on women and museums aside - when discussing acts of perception and the composition of painting there is some interesting insight - the 'technical manifesto' of 1910 inquires: 'How is it possible still to see the human face pink, now that our life, redoubled by noctambulism, has multiplied our perceptions as colourists? The human face is yellow, red, green, blue, violet'. This idea of multiple perceptions - fragmented, dislocated, shown in simultaneity nonetheless - striking and applicable to the paintings. I liked some of the Russian painters - Natalya Goncharova's 'Electric Light' for instance, though I noticed these were the painters particularly dismissed by Brian Sewell in his Guardian review - I'm not the expert here I know.

Not much of the spiritual in this exhibition, at least not explicitly. But I liked the work of Frantisek Kupka, particularly one 'The Primitive (Burst of Light)' (picture above) which was apparently inspired by a visit to a French church. More painting concerned with light. And also new to me two separate triptychs by Boccionni on the subjects of departure; each with the titles 'The Farewells', 'Those Who Go', 'Those Who Stay' and the later set notably more detailed and cubist than the earlier more impressionistic set, and which I think I preferred. These were the only paintings before which I sat down and let their tones soak in. The sad blue-green swirls of those who stayed hovered like ghosts on the canvas, and the whole idea for the trio(s) seemed resonant - summing up many experiences of life - departures; moving on, and conversely sometimes, being left behind. Those who stayed are suspended in the memory, merging phantom-like into the background of their own era and location. Not quite applicable to Futurism - which, though it dissipated like the imagist movement in poetry, still made its mark.

Back home and our life has changed, for we are now proud owners of two little black kittens, who after an initial period of bewilderment and astonishment, have settled in enough to eat, play and sleep. No names yet but they have very definitely arrived.