I had a lot of trouble understanding the point that Sartini-Blum was trying to make in her article. What I understood from the article (and this could be completely off base) is that artists found obscure ways of incorporating colonialist propaganda into their works.

My way of understanding the article was by reading about Marinetti’s futurism. From the research I did online I learned that the intention of the literary movement was to show fellow Italians that they “had been wearing second hand clothes for too long.” Marinetti was pushing for Italians to make a new understanding of art for themselves that would come out of “the beauty of speed” and a glorification of war. All of this was outlined in Marinetti’s futurist manifesto which was published in the newspaper in Bologna Gazzetta dell’Emilia in 1909.

When I searched Italian Futurist Art this came up. It is called Elasticity by Umberto Boccioni

by Laura

I’ve always been really fascinated by the Futurist movement, because it was so inherently political – the way it romanticized industrialization and technology strikes me as very similar to the way the Fascists attempted to romanticize colonialism and fascism itself. And, as Sartini-Blum hints at in the article, I think futurism was ultimately very pro-fascist, as it, in its way, glamorized the “standardized and depersonalized society that [the Fascists] sought to create” (Sartini-Blum, 138).

For example, much futurist art of the time featured industrial buildings depicted in a very surreal and exciting manner, such as this painting by Umberto Buccioni, The City Rises:

Or this painting, by Gino Severini, which depicts an armoured train:

This image, though, may be my favorite. This painting, Patriotic Storm by Fortunato Depero, is so blatantly nationalistic it is almost absurd:

The website from which these pictures were taken made a very interesting point that I think very precisely captures the political nature of the futurist movement:

“When Italy declared entry into the First World, many Futurists signed up to fight. From its inception the movement was nationalistic and promoted violence, so naturally many saw the war as an opportunity to demonstrate their ideals. “We will glorify war – the world’s only hygiene – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for,” the Futurist Manifesto had stated in 1909.”

(Read more about 20 Dynamic Paintings From The Italian Futurists  Cartridge Save Blog )