Ivo Pannaggi, Speeding Train (Treno in corsa), 1922

Painting, sculpture, architecture, design, ceramics, fashion, film, photography, advertising, free-form poetry, publications, music, theater and performanceItalian Futurism encompassed all of these and more in the years before World War I, as one of early modern arts most dynamic, controversial and unpredictable movements. Unlike their Cubist contemporaries in Pariswho, despite the atomizing effects of their revolutionary style, tended toward classic genres like still lifeFuturisms artists wanted to capture movement through time and space. It was all of a piece with their desire to represent the 20th centurys cultural ferment and breakneck industrialization. The Futurists, whose politics at the start ranged from socialism to anarchism, celebrated the speed made possible by the locomotive, the automobile and the airplane, and they gloried in the rebellious fervor of mobs, making images of strikers or demonstrators a favorite subject. They also extolled violence as a means of upending the entrenched order, as well as embracing misogyny, militarism and nationalism, eventually associating with the Italian Fascism of the 1920s and 30s. Yet despite its complicated history, Futurisms disregard for artistic limitations and aesthetic boundaries, and its exploitation of mass media to publicize its activities, offers lessons for today.

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A guide to the Italian Futurism art movement