The Manifest Image

This week we venture into the Latin American avant garde with Vicente Huidobro’s Non Serviam. The first of several manifestos establishing the artist’s Creacionismo (Creationism), a novel approach to poetry that radically leaves behind all pretences to naturalism. Ostensibly written in 1916, Non Serviam, becomes popular in the Paris of the early 1920s when Huidobro meets Picasso, Ersnt, Gris, Reve...

This week, while we recover from technical difficulties, we bring you the first of a sporadic bonus-series on the philosophy of art and aesthetics. In this episode we look at the distinction between the content of a work of art and its form, as always mustering manifestos and artists along the way. Our intro music is by Aron Gyenge, whom we greatly thank.

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This week, while Thomas and Ariel are away, we bring the second episode of Baseless Theories. Each episode we bring you a series of wild speculations that don’t make it into the regular podcast. This week, did Oscar Wilde forsee his own fall? Tune in to find out. Our intro music is by Aron Gyenge, whom we greatly thank.

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This week, while Thomas and Ariel are away, we bring you a mini-episode the first of a recurring series: Baseless Theories. Each episode we bring you a series of wild speculations that don’t make it into the regular podcast. Did Matisse paint the first Francis Bacon? The first Rothko? Was he really Felix Valloton? Tune in to find out. Paintings referenced are below. Feel free to share some of your...

This week, as we wrap up our Fauve digression, we take a look at a selection of Matisse’s Fauve paintings. In them we find the growth of Matisse’s personal style and draw from our previous episodes to understand his style and aesthetic concerns. Links below. Luxe, Calme et Volupte, 1904 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxe,_Calme_et_Volupt%C3%A9#/media/File:Matisse-Luxe.jpg Woman with a Hat, 1905 ht...

This week, we discuss Sarah Stein’s notes on Matisse’s pedagogy from 1908. Sarah, sister-0in-law to Gertrude Stein, was a close friend of Matisse and a pupil in his academy. Her notes give us great insight into Matisse’s process and his approach to different mediums, sculpture, drawing, and painting. Through these we further deepen our understanding of his essentialism and poetic vision. Works Dis...

This week we continue our series on Fauvism with Henri Matisse’s “Notes of a Painter” published in La Grande Revue on the 25th of December 1908. Matisse was one of the 20th century’s most influential artists and his work remains a towering testament to the power of levity and beauty. Join us as we explore his pictorial essentialism and the tensions between nature and expression that he sought to r...

This week we take a look at the life and times of Andre Derain, one of the leadings Fauves. We dive into his world with his letters to Vlaminck (1905-1909) as a guide and find them particularly moving. In this episode we touch on colour, light and shadow, and the very value of art. Struggling artists will no doubt find as much solace in his candid retelling of experience as we have. Paintings Ment...

This week we take a look at a selection of Maurice de Vlaminck’s work including a few of his remarks about the loose movement which would come to be known as Fauvism. Although a painter fiercely resistant towards the aesthetic authorities of the past, Vlaminck was influenced by contemporaries like Van Gogh, and engaged in a thriving artistic scene with his friend André Derain. Images: https://www....

This week we take a look at Henri Rousseau's The Dream (1910), his relationship with Guillaume Apollinaire, and wether one can trust an artist's own explanation of their work. The Dream: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79277 Our intro music is by Aron Gyenge, whom we greatly thank. Follow us on: Instagram @themanifestimagepodcast And support us on: ko-fi.com/themanifestimage

For our first episode away from Futurism we look back at the Salon D'Automne of 1905, the exhibition that lead to the coining of the term Fauve, and Fauvism. But was this designation by critic Louis Vauxcelles correct? Was Fauvism ever a movement? Or just a loose taxonomy for limited critical minds to classify forms of expression as yet unseen? What is the role of art criticism? Can we see the eme...

This week, our last with Futurism for a while, we take a look at Futurist Stage Design, written by Enrico Prampolini, one of the stranger prophesies the Futurists made of art to come: The staid walls of the naturalistic set were to be demolished, the theatrical unbound from mere mimesis and predictability. The actor would become a gaseous cloud of pure colour and activity. Our intro music is by Ar...

This week, as our dive into Futurism slowly comes to an end, we take a look at Futurist Synthetic Theatre, F.T. Marinetti, Emilio Settimelli, and, Bruno Corra's explosive foray into the theatrical arts. With characteristic verve they skewer the prevailing forms at the time and propose an audacious, and most importantly short, form of theatre that went on to influence the likes of Samuel Becket and...

This week we dive into the theatrical arts by reading the Futurist Variety Theatre, the first manifesto where they lay out the foundations of their distinct form of theatre. The theatre is for the Futurists more than just another vehicle for provocation, it was rather another terrain where they foresaw the development of a new art. Our intro music is by Aron Gyenge, whom we greatly thank. Follow u...

This week we discuss "Destruction of Syntax – The Wireless Imagination – Words In Freedom" written by FT Marinetti in May 1913, and read at Galerie La Boetie in Paris on the 22nd of June of the same year. Also known as the "Radio Imagination", this manifesto follows up on A Response to Objections and the Tehcnical Manifesto of Futurist Litterature. In it the Futurists lay out a doctrine that goes...

This week we take a break from music and look at Futurist Litterature. Specifically, the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Litterature by F.T. Marinetti. Published in 1912, the manifesto seeks to revolutionize litterature and poetry by encouraging writers to liberate their words entirely from the shackles of syntax. The resulting noun-heavy poetic prose was ahead of its time and, like many aspects o...

We are back this week with The Art of Noises by Luigi Russolo anda guest appearence by musician Aron Gyenge. This manifesto, that was originally written as a letter to his friend and fellow Futurist Francesco Balilla Pratella in 1913, had a huge influence on the development of musical aesthetics in the 20th century. Our intro music is by Aron Gyenge, whom we greatly thank. Follow us on: Instagram...

In this episode we look at The Exhibitors to the Public written in 1911 by Umberto Boccioni. The English version we read is from the catalogue of The Exhibition of Works by the Italian Futurist Painters at the Sackville Gallery, London. The text presents new concepts like physical transcendentalism and futuristic primitivism and primes viewers for the novel paintings they are about to see. The tex...

This week we have composer Aron Gyenge joining us to discuss the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Musicians. Published in 1911 by Francesco Balilla Pratella, the manifesto was an attempt to flesh out the radical intentions set forth in his previous Manifesto of Futurist Musicians. Pratella excoriates those that are still trapped by traditional narrative and formal constraints and outlines a brave n...

This is the first of three episodes on Futurist music. This week we dive into the Manifesto of Futurist Musicians by Francesco Balilla Pratella, a successful composer in his time. Like most Futurist writings it is lively and scathing. Pratella reduces the singer to an instrument, elevates the composer to librettist, and aims to challenge audiences rather than mollify them. Join us through tangents...

This week we take a look at the second part of Electrical War, written by F.T. Marinetti. It was originally publishes in Le Futurisme (1911), but was re-released in 1915 in two parts: The Birth of a Futurist Aesthetic and A Futurist Vision Hypothesis (the section we are analysing today). In an exciting return to form, Marinetti brings to life his vision of a futurist tomorrow. With poverty and dis...

We return again to the key Futurist thinker, F.T.Marinetti; to consider his “Electrical War” First published in French, in 1911, in Le Futurisme, as a single piece. However, by 1915, when translating it, he divided it into two: the first part was renamed, “The Birth of a Futurist Aesthetic”, in Italian, “Nascita di un’estetica futurista”, while its second part was named, “Electrical War (Futurist...

Futurism, War, and The Multiplied Man by The Manifest Image

This week, we continue looking into Futurism’s conception of women as well as start to explore Futurist politics, namely through the issue of women’s suffrage. We start with Futurism And Woman by Margaret Wynne Nevinson (1910), a Futurist critic, and continue with Contempt For Woman by F.T. Marinetti (1911), later translated as Against Love And Parliamentarianism. Through these texts we see Marine...

[Includes a mention of sexual violence]. This week we look at the Futurist Manifesto of Lust proclaimed by Valentine de Saint-Point in Paris’ Salle Gaveau on the eve of war in 1913. In it she will declare lust a force, the primal drive from which creative energies flow, and impel us to free it from the smothering effect of sentimentality. Her provocation is not only exciting and beautifully writte...