Editing Futurism (section)

=== Aeropainting ===

Aeropainting (''aeropittura'') was a major expression of Futurism in the thirties and early forties.  The technology and excitement of flight, directly experienced by most aeropainters,<ref name=Osborn>[http://simultaneita.net/tulliocrali.html Osborn, Bob, ''Tullio Crali: the Ultimate Futurist Aeropainter'']</ref> offered aeroplanes and [[aerial landscape art|aerial landscape]] as new subject matter.  But aeropainting was varied in subject matter and treatment, including realism (especially in works of propaganda), abstraction, dynamism, quiet Umbrian landscapes,<ref>" ... dal realismo esasperato e compiatciuto (in particolare delle opere propagandistico) alle forme asatratte (come in Dottori: ''Trittico della velocità''), dal dinamismo alle quieti lontane dei paesaggi umbri di Dottori ... ." ''L'aeropittura futurista'' http://users.libero.it/macbusc/id22.htm</ref> portraits of Mussolini (e.g. Dottori's ''Portrait of il Duce''), devotional religious paintings and decorative art.   

Aeropainting was launched in a manifesto of 1929, ''Perspectives of Flight'', signed by [[Benedetta]], [[Depero]], [[Gerardo Dottori|Dottori]], [[Fillia]], Marinetti, [[Enrico Prampolini|Prampolini]], [[Somenzi]] and [[Tato]]. The artists stated that  "The changing perspectives of flight constitute an absolutely new reality that has nothing in common with the reality traditionally constituted by a terrestrial perspective" and that "Painting from this new reality requires a profound contempt for detail and a need to synthesise and transfigure everything." Crispolti identifies three main "positions" in aeropainting: "a vision of cosmic projection, at its most typical in Prampolini's 'cosmic idealism'  ... ; a 'reverie' of aerial fantasies sometimes verging on fairy-tale (for example in Dottori ...); and a kind of aeronautical documentarism that comes dizzyingly close to direct celebration of machinery (particularly in [[Tullio Crali|Crali]], but also in Tato and Ambrosi)."<ref>Crispolti, E., "Aeropainting", in Hulten, P., ''Futurism and Futurisms'', Thames and Hudson, 1986, p.413</ref>  Eventually there were over a hundred aeropainters.  The most able were Balla, Depero, Prampolini, Dottori and Crali.<ref>Tisdall, C. and Bozzola A., ''Futurism'', Thames and Hudson, 1993, p.198</ref> 

Fortunato Depero was the co-author with Balla of ''The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe'', (1915) a radical manifesto for the revolution of everyday life.  He practised painting, design, sculpture, graphic art, illustration, interior design, stage design and ceramics.<ref name=MartinS>Martin, S., ''Futurism'', Taschen, n.d.</ref>  The decorative element comes to the fore in Depero's later painting, e.g. ''Train Born from the Sun'' (1924).  He applied this approach in theatre design and commercial art - e.g. his unrealised designs for [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky's]] ''Chant du Rossignol'', (1916) his large tapestry, ''The Court of the Big Doll'' (1920) and his many posters. 

Enrico Prampolini pursued a programme of abstract and quasi-abstract painting, combined with a career in stage design.  His ''Spatial-Landscape Construction'' (1919) is quasi-abstract with large flat areas in bold colours, predominantly red, orange, blue and dark green.  His ''Simultaneous Landscape'' (1922) is totally abstract, with flat colours and no attempt to create perspective. In his ''Umbrian Landscape'' (1929), produced in the year of the Aeropainting Manifesto, Prampolini returns to figuration, representing the hills of Umbria.  But by 1931 he had adopted "cosmic idealism", a biomorphic abstractionism quite different from the works of the previous decade, for example in ''Pilot of the Infinite'' (1931) and ''Biological Apparition'' (1940).

Gerardo Dottori made a specifically Futurist contribution to landscape painting, which he frequently shows from an aerial viewpoint.  Some of his landscapes appear to be more conventional than Futurist, e.g. his ''Hillside Landscape'' (1925).  Others are dramatic and lyrical, e.g. ''The Miracle of Light'' (1931-2), which employs his characteristic high viewpoint over a schematised landscape with patches of brilliant colour and a non-naturalistic perspective reminiscent of pre-Renaissance painting; over the whole are three rainbows, in non-naturalistic colour.  More typically Futurist is his major work, the ''Velocity Triptych'' of 1925.  

Dottori was one of the principal exponents of Futurist sacred art. His painting of ''St. Francis Dying at Porziuncola'' has a strong landscape element and a mystical intent conveyed by distortion, dramatic light and colour. 

Mural painting was embraced by the Futurists in the ''Manifesto of Mural Plasticism'' at a time when the revival of fresco painting was being debated in Italy.<ref name=MartinS/>  Dottori carried out many mural commissions including the ''Altro Mondo'' in Perugia (1927-8) and the hydroport at Ostia (1928).<ref>Hulten, P., ''Futurism and Futurisms'', Thames and Hudson, 1986, p.468</ref> 

Tullio Crali, a self-taught painter, was a late adherent to Futurism, not joining until 1929.  He is noted for his realistic aeropaintings, which combine "speed, aerial mechanisation and the mechanics of aerial warfare".<ref name=Osborn/>  His earliest aeropaintings represent military planes, ''Aerial Squadron'' and ''Aerial Duel'' (both 1929), in appearance little different from works by Prampolini or other Futurist painters.  In the 1930s, his paintings became realistic, intending to communicate the experience of flight to the viewer.<ref name=Osborn/>  His best-known work, ''Nose Dive on the City'' (1939), shows an aerial dive from the pilot's point of view, the buildings below drawn in dizzying perspective.