| Abstract: | The 1940s are undoubtedly the years most neglected by scholars of Futurism. This essay examines critical responses to the period over the last fifty years, considering how the failure to engage with it reflects a more general – and surprisingly persistent – belief that to all intents and purposes Futurism ended in 1915. It also notes how this phase has been considered beyond redemption, politically speaking, as a result of the movement's enduring support for Fascism in its most brutal and destructive years, and artistically substandard as a consequence of its readiness to produce works of explicit propaganda in an easily accessible, figurative vocabulary. However, the essay argues that the 1940s cannot truly be said to reveal a rupture in the ideology and art of Futurism – which had long celebrated war and violence, and which resists purely formalist interpretation. Moreover, this concluding period might even be said to have witnessed a reawakening of the movement's original visionary spirit, engendered by the fragmentation and collapse of both Mussolini's regime and the industrialized Italy celebrated by Futurist artists and poets for more than thirty years. |
