Futurism and the glorification of speed: when the automobile outperformed even Greek statues
- 08/10/2024
- Angela Ceravolo
In 1909, a man named Filippo Tommaso Marinetti decided that true beauty was no longer found in Greek muses or Gothic cathedrals, but in a racing car launched at full speed. And so with his Manifesto of Futurism, he declared war on everything slow, ancient and dusty, including his grandfather who probably still drove a carriage. The future, for Marinetti and his followers, had four wheels, a roaring engine and left a trail of smoke and burned gasoline behind it. 
But it was not just about art. Futurists imagined a future where the car would be the center of everything: cities cut by elevated roads, buildings so tall that elevators would be faster than the cars themselves, and the roar of engines would replace church bells. The architect Antonio Sant'Elia, for example, dreamed of futuristic cities where cars sped past skyscrapers and suspension bridges, creating an organized chaos that made old town centers pale. 
Today, as we drive our electric cars or dream of flying in self-driving cars, it is hard not to see the legacy of those crazy futurists. We may no longer glorify war (thankfully), but the obsession with speed, technology and cars is more alive than ever. Maybe Marinetti would be thrilled to see cars traveling without the need for gasoline and (almost) without a driver; who knows, maybe he would already be writing a new manifesto on how the future now travels ... silently.
But it was not just any car that stole the hearts of the futurists. No, no. It had to be a rocketship, a car that screamed “overstepping the limits” at every acceleration. In fact, Marinetti was inspired by a race he did with his Fiat, flying over dusty roads like there was no tomorrow. The car thus became the perfect symbol of modernity: not just a way to get from point A to point B, but an experience that bypassed time and history with a thunderous roar.In those years, models such as the Fiat 24-32 HP and the Isotta Fraschini Tipo FENC were beginning to dominate Italian roads and beyond. But the apotheosis of the sports car was the Itala 35/45 HP, winner of the legendary Beijing-Paris Raid of 1907. Imagine: driving thousands of kilometers across deserts, steppes and mountains in an iron monster, just to prove that yes, the future was indeed here, even if it needed to change tires every ten kilometers.
For the futurists, the automobile was not just a car. It was an idea, a manifesto on wheels. Who needed poems and static paintings when the beauty of speed could be celebrated? Marinetti proclaimed that a racing car was “more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace”, a statement that would probably turn an art conservative's nose up at today, but which drove technology and innovation lovers crazy back in the day. Because yes, for the futurists, the past was a ballast, something to be scrapped like a rusty old car. If it wasn't fast, it didn't count.Futurists glorified car races as if they were epic battles (with fewer swords and more tires). Competitions like the Targa Florio, one of Italy's oldest car races, embodied the essence of movement: the triumph of the machine and speed over the immobility of everyday life. The tight curves of the Sicilian mountains were tackled with the same adrenaline with which Marinetti tackled his posters: at full speed, without looking back.And then there were them, the artists. Balla, Boccioni, Andreoni, Baldessari, Russolo, etc. were desperately trying to translate into art that unique feeling that only a car launched at full speed can give you. In their paintings, movement became the absolute protagonist, as in “Dynamism of a Car”, in which the car and the road seem to merge into a vortex of lines. The world was changing, and art had to change with it: more dynamism, more energy, more speed.
And it is not that the automobile was only a symbol of progress. It was also an affirmation of power and freedom. Finally, modern man could dominate time and space. Models like the Lancia Alfa (1907) were every futurist's dream: elegance, power, and that feeling of being able to escape from the world with a simple push on the accelerator pedal.The obsession with speed did not stop, however, at pure motion. For the futurists, speed was a way of life. That is why they glorified war as the “hygiene of the world”-an idea that disturbs us today, but at the time seemed part of the package of extreme speed. Destruction was necessary to build something new, just like an old car being demolished to make way for a shiny new model.
