Luigi Russolo, Futurist

by Luciano Chessa

  Preceded by a series of preparatory studies and existing in various versions—in which the experience of Compenetrazioni iridescenti and Spessori di atmosfera is clearly visible—Mercurio passa davanti al Sole aims to re-create the experience of seeing the partial solar eclipse caused by Mercury on November 7, 1914, by reproducing the sublime and grandiose harmony of such natural phenomena through forms that are ideal, platonic, abstract. Balla was interested in astronomy and especially familiar with the research of the astronomer and theosophist Flammarion.113 Thus he observed the 1914 eclipse through a telescope, capturing on canvas the circular forms of Mercury, depicted in a spiral trajectory representing the different phases of the planet’s motion, as they overlap with bold vigor against the mass of the sun, the solar rays, and the refractions of the focal lens itself. Mercury, placing itself in between the earth and the sun, acts as a catalyst in the union of the opposed entities of Sun and Earth; Balla was able to downscale this cosmic union to a microcosmic, human level because, thanks to the technology of the telescope, it had become fully perceptible to human eyes.

  FIGURE 5. Giacomo Balla, Mercurio passa davanti al Sole, visto da un cannocchiale (1914). Gianni Mattioli Collection (on long-term loan at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice). © 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

  This scientific-alchemical attitude can be found also in the 1915 manifesto Ricostruzione futurista dell’universo, signed by Balla and Depero but enriched with interpolations by Marinetti. In this manifesto we see the artist playing God. Though the attempt is overambitious, it is far from Boccioni’s titanic “frescoes.” Balla created the detail; he did not expect to create the entire universe in one single shot but, rather, patiently to populate it through example and its multiplications.

  Consistent with all the aesthetic coordinates Balla had elaborated until then, the manifesto proposed to discover the pure and ideal forms that shape nature to produce a true tridimensional abstract art in which the synesthetic interaction—of painting, sculpture, the art of noises, and even odors—is once again decisive:

  Pictorial futurism evolved, in six years, as the overcoming and solidification of Impressionism, plastic dynamism and molding of an atmosphere, interpenetration of planes and states of mind. The lyric valuation of the universe, by means of Words in Freedom [Parole in libertà] of Marinetti and the art of noises of Russolo, fuses itself with the plastic dynamism to give a dynamic, simultaneous, plastic, noisy expression of the universal vibration.

  [. . .] We will give skeleton and flesh to the invisible, the impalpable, the imponderable, the imperceptible. We will find the abstract equivalents of all the forms and of all the elements of the universe, then we will combine them together, according to the caprices of our inspiration, to form plastic complexes that we will put in motion.114

  A few paragraphs later, Marinetti intervened in the manifesto in the form of a citation, in which he gave his blessing to Balla’s and Depero’s plastic complexes: “Therefore art becomes Presence, new Object, new reality created with the abstract elements of the universe. The hands of the artist who worships the past (passatista) suffered for the lost Object; our hands were impatient to create a new Object. That is why the new Object (plastic complex) appears miraculously between your hands.”115

  As in the case of the Compenetrazioni iridescenti of the preceding year, behind this theory of creation, which moves from an ideal level and lands at a analogous concrete materialization, there is the influence of the theory of correspondences: to every object that our mind can imagine, a material object can correspond, according to the assumption that what exists in the macrocosm must have a correspondent in the microcosm, and vice versa.

  Side by side with the alchemic/philosophic aspect in the manifesto stands a more playful magic, an ideal meeting point between Marinetti’s Manifesto del teatro di varietà (1913), Palazzeschi’s manifesto Il controdolore (1913), and what would be Depero’s marionette. The manifesto’s section “Miracle and Magic” has more to do with the tricks of the illusionist than with the scientific seriousness of the alchemist and betrays Depero’s imprint. Balla the “magician” entertains with tricks of conjuring, appearing, and disappearing among unexpected firecracker explosions, as if in a performance dedicated to children.116 In the rhetorical elaboration of the futurist toy and its pyrotechnic marvels, however, their contradictory nature is revealed; these are creations in which the game overlaps frighteningly with militaristic propaganda, and fantasy with the reality of war.

  In closing the manifesto, just before their customary patriotically based claim for the “Italian genius,” Balla and Depero adopted a messianic tone and affirmed that “we have descended into the profound essence of the universe, and we master the elements.” With such elemental control, and by way of the fusion of art and science, they declared that they could repopulate the earth with the multiplication of new samples of reality, true futurist homunculi that are either the innocuous fiori magici trasformabili motorumoristi (transformable magical motor-noisy flowers) or the dangerous metallic animals that, mass produced in millions of units, would have the task of re-creating in the field of art the hoped-for political conflagration of the Great War, which had just broken out and for which the futurists forcefully promoted intervention.

  The idea of materialization, and above all the desire to give “skeleton and flesh to the invisible, the impalpable, the imponderable, the imperceptible” to obtain “a dynamic, simultaneous, plastic, noisy expression of the universal vibration,” denotes the influence on this manifesto of Thought-forms, which is already an influence present in Compenetrazioni iridescenti, and also in Trasformazione forme spiriti and Forme e pensiero—visione spiritica.

  One last proof of Balla’s interest in the theosophical mysticism of colors and their associations with states of mind, as documented in Thought-forms, appears in a note never actually transcribed but reproduced in a manuscript by Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco. The note is dated 1914–15, the period in which Balla and Depero were producing the plastic complexes now lost but documented in photographs in the manifesto, and also a period in which Balla was still working on the series of Compenetrazioni. In this note, passatisti and futuristi colors are contrasted in the form of scenic action: the passatista yellow is depressing, whereas the futurista yellow is joyous; the passatista blue is monotonous, whereas the futurista blue is spiritual; the passatista red is mistrustful, whereas the futurista red is violent; and the passatista white is filthy, whereas the futurista white is clairvoyant.117

  CHAPTER 2

  Occult Futurism

  PROVINCIAL HIPSTERS: THE COUNTS GINANNI CORRADINI

  Celant maintains that both Balla and Bragaglia were pointed to the reading of occult texts by the brothers Arnaldo and Bruno Ginanni Corradini, counts of Ravenna. Given the brothers’ precocious interest in the occult sciences, their influence on the futurist movement in occult matters during the early years may have been decisive.1 Describing them as “the most esoteric futurists,” Celant cites a claim by Ginna that illustrates their formative readings: “We provided ourselves with spiritualist and occult books, my brother and I, through the publishers Dourville and Chacormac. We read the occultists Elifas Levi, Papus, theosophists like Blavatsky and Steiner, Besant, secretary of the Theosophical Society, Leadbeater, Edoard Shure [sic].”2

  Ginna’s note is not dated, but it is reasonable to think that the brothers’ readings began around 1910. Their first pamphlet, Metodo of 1910, which both of them signed with the pseudonym A.B.C., clearly established the coordinates of their theoretical position and aesthetics. The signature refers to their initials (Arnaldo Bruno Corradini), but of course it also references the first three letters of the alphabet and the “abecedario,” the alphabet book. This is appropriate, given that the brief treatise had an educational purpose. The physical, intellectual, and spiritual education of the individual promised in its pages is obtained through gymnastics (or exercises), diet, the study of Eastern
disciplines, meditation, and yoga.3 In time, Russolo, too, would pursue these interests.

  Metodo is accompanied by exercises—physical, mental, breathing, and autosuggestion—and it is pervaded by theosophical concepts. The following passage, for example, lays out the theosophical doctrine of vibrations:

  In Nature is present a force that is in everything. This force is in perpetual vibration; this vibration or undulation of the atoms that constitute matter manifests itself to us in different forms, as for example, in light, heat, electricity, attraction, repulsion, harmony, dissonance, magnetism, thought, etc. If our thinking, our acting, is not in harmony with the laws by which everyone without exception must abide, it is clear that we will suffer from its evil effects.4

  The treatise, written more than twenty-five years before Luigi Russolo’s Al di là della materia (1938), mentions suggestive therapy, yoga, hypnotism, and magnetism and cites the experiments of Mesmer, Puységur, and Baraduc. Metodo had considerable success and acquired numerous admirers and followers for the Corradinis.5

  That same year the two Ravennese counts also published the pamphlet Arte dell’avvenire, in which they attempted the difficult marriage between art and science. The aesthetic vision that emerges from its pages substantially preserves a romantic system of thought, as revealed by the Wagnerian cast of its very title, and by the series of artists cited (Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Meyerbeer, etc.).6 But in their aesthetic vision, the model composer was not so much Wagner, a genius “hampered by the nightmare of the word,” who gave too much importance to the literary text in a musical composition, but Hector Berlioz. He, having learned better than Wagner, and much earlier, the lesson of Beethoven’s late symphonies, knew how to create true “dramas without words,” though according to the brothers these were unfortunately misunderstood. “Few realized that the way indicated and in part traveled by Berlioz was the true, the only one,” they solemnly conclude.7

  Occasional deviations from this romantic system occur wherever traces of occultist readings surface: “It is necessary that we give our passion to the dead things of nature so they acquire in our eyes the vitality of the artwork.”8 The idea of the artist as someone who could animate “the dead things of nature” certainly has a mesmeric side; this is followed by an exposition of the theory of correspondences, here understood as a protocol that regulates the relations between physical world and spiritual world:

  The artist is he who takes from nature its [. . .] fundamental elements and, conscious of the correspondences between them and his sentiments, composes them variously to represent the passions and games of force among them. Thus is defined the work of art: passions in such reciprocal relations as to form a system—a system identical to those that revolve in the Heavens or to those between the molecules of matter: neither more nor less.9

  A direct consequence of the systematic identity of art and the heavens is synesthesia. As the brothers explained, “Among all the arts there exists parallelism and a correspondence of absolute forms.” This idea had already been proclaimed in the Giuseppe Mazzini epigraph used in the first edition of the text: “The Arts need someone who can tie them together again. This person will come.”10

  The synesthetic ideal is further amplified in the closing sentences of the pamphlet’s revised and augmented edition, published one year later: “This treatise includes the already evolved arts; there remain the arts that are linked to the other senses. On the art of flavors I lack experience; of the music of odors I could produce a very complete treatise if an exact and complete nomenclature existed in this field.”11

  Further evidence of theosophical thought can be found in Musica cromatica of 1912, which, though only Bruno Corradini is listed as author, was clearly the theoretical work of both brothers. In this pamphlet, which reelaborates essential points of Arte dell’avvenire, they aimed to illustrate the result of their studies on the physics of light and sound that is intended to produce “chromatic” (as in color-based) music.

  In an early phase, color-based music was generated by a color-based keyboard, whose twenty-eight keys controlled an equal number of colored lightbulbs that lit up to produce “color” chords; a prototype of this keyboard was completed in 1909.12 Color-based keyboards were a commonplace in occult and synesthetic circles, presumably dating back at least to Newton’s color music disc, but the Corradinis’ experimental keyboard brings to mind one of the most famous of their time: the luminous keyboard called for in the score of Scriabin’s Prometheus of 1908–10, a work in which theosophical influence is well documented.13

  The Corradinis’ aim, unlike Scriabin’s, was not so much to associate sound and color as to spiritualize the visual arts by adopting the formal and expressive articulation of a piece of music “translated” into combinations of colors. But their experiment was not satisfactory. The brothers therefore next attempted to realize the music of colors without the aid of a keyboard, by first theorizing and then producing what may very well be the first example in history of abstract cine-painting, which they called cinepittura. In this phase of their work, they painted directly on film, determining the color of each individual frame. Here the color chords were produced through an optical trick that depended on the persistence of images in the retina; by projecting differently colored frames in rapid succession, one could obtain the effect of overlapping colors.14 The synesthetic ideal was fundamental to the entire treatise, as was the theosophical influence; the brothers even discussed Claude Bragdon’s theosophical text The Beautiful Necessity—Seven Essays on Theosophy and Architecture.15

  In Pittura dell’avvenire of 1915, Arnaldo Ginna investigated further theosophically derived ideas. This essay opens with the idea that “Minerals live, hurt, sicken, and die like plants and animals. Every discovery, however apparently unrelated to others, forms with them the line of conjunction between the essential points-laws; the universal line-law already dreamed of by alchemists of the Middle Ages and by poets of all ages.”16

  Ginna is well informed about tension between the sciences and the occult. In Pittura dell’avvenire, he considers the occult disciplines of alchemy, spiritualism, mediumism, telepathy, water divination, astrology, magic, and magnetism to be “sciences of tomorrow”; he complains that though these subjects are studied at the École de psychologie of Paris, and though scientific proof of the magnetic fluid (a property which could explain all of these manifestations) exists, the processes by which these sciences operate are still largely unknown.17

  Ginna then describes his pictorial process in the light of these future sciences:

  Human thought and sentiment are vibrations that are certainly not delimited by our physical body, but it is both evident and experimentally proved that they are a force similar to electricity or to the Hertzian wave that propagates itself indefinitely in the ether. The living forms created by this vibratory force are the essence of our tremors of hate, love, lust, mysticism, fear, courage, self-abnegation, sacrifice, etc. I paint therefore not the attitudes of a human, contorted in pain but the vibration of his pained soul or PAIN ITSELF.18

  The direct influence of theosophy is confirmed by Ginna’s citing from Thought-forms and Man visible and invisible. He calls for the artists of the future to follow the example of such “ultrasensitive mystics” as Leadbeater who, “with a very different purpose from that of creating a painting, drew forms that express a state of mind.”19 Such individuals, able to grasp and reproduce the forms and colors of the etheric vibrations generated by bodies in different emotional states, were for Ginna “mediums that claimed to be guided by an entity outside of their own will and personality. And they were mystics that claimed to be inspired by a Divinity. But in any case they were always hypersensitive men, armed with a power of sight and thought beyond the ordinary.”20

  Ginna emphasized the fact that one cannot “avoid observing the similarity of representational approach between the states of mind of a highly sensitive mystic such as Leadbeater and those of a
most modern painter.”21 And in fact it is in the act of comparing mediumistic and artistic activity that the roots of Ginna’s abstract painting can be located; he himself defined his work as “Occult Painting.”22

  Nevertheless, in Ginna’s occult painting the equivalence of painter and medium is controlled. He described his artistic process as follows:

  The state in which I put myself, for the most part voluntarily, is not mediumistic or somnambulistic, because I do not fall into a trance. The definition of this exact state, although difficult to explain, is conscious subconsciousness. This approach to painting, invisible to others, is formed of mostly very bright colors in very fast vibration in the air . . . (or in the ether). This painting is the expression of a sentiment of mine or of others; or it may be provoked by a piece of music or by noise. [. . .] With all this I CANNOT SAY if they are astral or mental vibrations; AND I DO NOT KNOW if these forms, living a life a thousand times more intense than our own, are created by my psyche or if they themselves come to me when I open the window of my soul. We are not advanced enough in experimental and scientific method to be able to verify these phenomena.23

  The affinity this passage bears with certain writings by Kandinsky could be considered embarrassing, but Ginna claimed poetic autonomy and maintained that inspired artists are able to attain abstraction by similar paths, even without knowing about each other’s work.24 In the final note of his essay, however, Ginna also claimed originality that sets him apart from the crowd of “abstract painters of the state of mind”; this was perhaps an indirect attack on one of Boccioni’s signature terms, his “states of mind” painting.25 Ginna in fact maintained that he had already formulated his aesthetic in 1910, while he was in exile in the Ravennese countryside, thereby claiming authorship of the first “non-representative, unreal, occult paintings constructed with abstract forms.”26