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Evening Star, Issue 15308, 7 October 1913, Page 4

“ No wonder it was in Italy that the Futurists arose,” wrote The Futurists, a Home reviewer recontly, “ What chanco “has a statesman, poet, or painter, “ "lien at every corner ho is confronted “ with tlie cold shade of Ccesar, Dante, “or Titian?” His contention is that the Futurist movement is a revolt against tho perpetual suffocation of the art atmosphere which tho present-day Italian must perforce breathe. His picture galleries are full of old masters; tho streets of his towns are filled with foreigners with guide books to these magnificent treasures; the dead-weight ol an nn forgotten past presses on his living soul. He seeks to get rid of this oppressive weight of “ splendid lumber,” not by means of destruction, but by supersession. He must give the world something to take tho place of the old masters; he must distract, attention from them and concentrate', it on his own productions. This art conversion is being attempted by methods which to staid, sober people smack more of raving lunacy than of anything else, Xo stereotyped churchman was ever so amazed and horrified by*, say, the -Moody and Sankey invasion of England as the ordinary frequenters of the Salon or the Academy at the exhibitions by which the Futurists first made their existence known. The religious revivalist may adopt unusual methods by which to compel attention, hut, having secured it, he is usually found to have a. definite message to deliver. These art revivalists, so far, do not seem to have got past the antio stage. Amazed eyes have been turned their way, and curiosity is now being felt as to what they have to offer. Seemingly they can only offer more antics. They advertise hugely, hut are merely advertising an advertisement, not an article of production. This may bo an advertising age, hut when tire average sightseer beholds tho circus troupe haranguing outside the tent he does not accept that as the performance itself. The haranguing is still going on. Not only in painting and sculpture is an art revolution being attempted, but in music and literature. Manifestos aro being issued, mostly from Rome and Milan. The latest that has come before our notice advocates “The Suppression of History,” involving also the suppression of about twenty established nuisances, such as- “poetic Cgrief,” “the copy in art,” syntax, adjectives, punctuation, criticism, and satire,: vers.e and boredom, also such obsolete figures a.s Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Beethoven, and Wagner! So it is no great surprise to learn, as tho cable pdvised us yesterday, of tho extraordinary Futurist concert given by an extraordinary Futurist orchestra at Milan, a city whose name one associates

a fanfare to a serious Futurist work of art to follow, this outbreak might bo comprehensible, a part of a huge advertising scheme. But it is itself offered to an incredulous world as the summit of the now achievement up to date, the last word in music. The titles of ■ tho programme numbers—' Waking up the City,’ ‘ Motor Cars and Aeroplanes,’ ‘Meeting for Dinner on the Terrace of the Casino,’ and ‘A Skirmish in tho Oasis ’ —are almost as startling as the names of the instruments on which these items were rendered. The Futurists are living up to th© promises contained in ono of their earliest manifestos. “There is no beanty ” (wroto Marinetti in the shattering preface to tho catalogue of the first futurist exhibition of paintings in London) “except in strife. No masterpiece without aggressiveness. |i^ e shall sing of tho great crowds in the excitement of labor, pleasure, or of tho multi-colored and it Polyphonic surf of 'revolutions in .modern capital cities; of the noctur- “ nal vibrations of arsenals and work- “ shops beneath their violent electric moons; of tho greedy stations swallowing snakes; of tho factories suspended from the clouds by their strings of smoke.” And in a later manifesto, issued from Milan, there is this passage:—“ And so in music, (j aiva y with all tho narrow restrictions of time and cadence and harmony, “all iho tried forms of sonata, sym- “ phony, oratorios, and opera. What no seek now is the music of noises—“the magnified noises with which man has surrounded himself—the roar of tho clang of hammered iron, tho giant pulsing of aeroplanes, “"the whizzing of motors, the gallop and screaming of locomotives, the “thunder and shrieks of tho crowd.” It is quite obvious that neither flute nor violin—not even bassoon nor B flattrombone—could convey adequately a tithe of those surging impressions. So we have tho “buzzer,” the “thundorer,” the “rustler,” tho “snorter,” etc., etc. The cacophony of Richard Stiauss must ho the purest, most limpid melody compared with the Milanese outburst. Tho nearest approach to it yet experienced on this long-suffering globe would probably he the achievements of the “rooters” of the American universities at some of their notorious football games. There is one spice of consolation. It is part of the Futurists’ creed that, as there must bo no history, they and their doings must very shortly become obsolete. Like battleships, which, almost before they ax*e launched, are on the road to obsolescence as compared with a now monster just laid down, so they n ill in turn be superseded. Already your true Futurist lias declared war against Post-Impressionists and Cubists in common with all other weary old masters! There is much comfort in this. These Red Fcderationists of Art will pass even as tho craze for pingpong has passed. But ono might with the greater certainty prophesy that no lasting effects will remain, were it not from the undeniable fact that their .movement is but ono visible sign. of a seething leaven of revolution which is gathering force in so very many of the u orld s activities to-day sterner activities than those merely of Art.