Because I had strolled over to buy a newspaper at a kiosk hard by the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, I discovered an announcement that the Italian Futurists were holding an exhibition in De Roos Gallery on the Rokindam. This was early in September, 1912. What a chance, I thought, to compare the new with the old. After that glorious trinity, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Vermeer, hanging in the Rijks, what a piquant contrast to study the new-fangled heresies and fantastic high-kicking of the Futurists! This group, consisting of five Italian painters in company with the poet Marinetti as a self-constituted chef d\'école, is perfectly agreed that all the old conventions of pictorial art have outlived their usefulness; that drawing, colour, perspective, harmonious composition must walk the plank as far as they are concerned; in a word, classic, romantic, impressionistic art is doomed; only symbolism will endure; for symbolism only is there a future. Signor Marinetti, who coined the hideous word, "Futurism," goes still further. Literature, too, must throw off the yoke of syntax. The adjective must be abolished, the verb of the infinite should be always employed; the adverb must follow the adjective; every substantive should have its double; away with [Pg 263] punctuation; you must "orchestrate" your language (this outrivals René Ghil); the personal pronoun is also to disappear with the rest of the outmoded literary baggage, which was once so useful to such moribund mediocrities (the phrase is of Marinetti\'s making) as Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Alfieri; even D\'Annunzio is become a moss-covered reactionary.

I purposely mention Marinetti and his manifesto for the reason that this movement in painting and sculpture is decidedly "literary," the very accusation of which makes the insurgents mightily rage. For example, I came across in De Kunst, a Dutch art publication in Amsterdam, a specimen of Marinetti\'s sublimated prose, the one page of which is supposed to contain more suggestive images and ideas than a library written in the old-fashioned manner. Here are a few lines (Battle is the title and the prose is in French):

"Bataille. Poids-odeur. Midi ? flutes glapissement embrasement toumb toumb alarme gargaresch éraquement érépitation marche," etc.

This parrot lingo, a mere stringing together of verbs and nouns, reminds one of the way the little African child was taught to say, dog, man, horse, cow, pump. When at Turin in March, 1910, they threw rotten eggs at Marinetti, in the Chiarella Theatre, the audience was but venting its feelings of indignation because of such silly utterances. Baudelaire, patterning after Poe and Bertrand, fashioned poems in [Pg 264] prose and created images of beauty; following him Huysmans added a novel nuance and made the form still more concentrated. But Signor Marinetti—there are no ideas in his prose and his images are nil—writes as if he were using a cable code, a crazy one at that. How far he is responsible for the "?sthetic" of the Futurist art I don\'t know. If he is responsible at all then he has worked much mischief, for several of the five painters are men of unquestionable ability, skilled brush workers and of an artistic sincerity that is without suspicion. Mind you, I don\'t say all of the groups; there are charlatans who hang on to the coat-tails of every talented man or are camp-followers in every movement. These five painters: Umberto Boccioni (Milan); Carlo D. Carra (Milan); Luigi Russolo (Milan); Giacomo Balla (Rome), and Gino Severini (Paris) do not paint for money. The pictures in this exhibition are not for sale; indeed, I doubt if the affair pays expenses, for it has travelled far; from Turin and Milan and Rome, to Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam. It will be in New York soon, and then look out for a repetition of the Playboy of the Western World scandal. Some of the pictures are very provocative.

Naturally the antithesis of old and new was unescapable the chilly September afternoon that I entered the "Roos" gallery. Fresh from The Milk Jug, that miracle in paint by Vermeer (formerly of the Jan Six Collection); from the [Pg 265] Rembrandt Night Watch (which was not much damaged by the maniac who slashed the right knee of the principal figure); from the two or three splendid portraits by Frans Hals; from the Elizabeth Bas and the Stallmeesters by Rembrandt—from all these masterpieces of great paint, poetry, humour, humanity, I confess the transition to the wild and whirling kaleidoscopes called pictures by these ferocious Futurists was too sudden for my eyes and understanding. It was some time before I could orient myself optically. If you have ever peered through one of those pasteboard cylinders dear to childhood, you will catch a tithe of my early sensations. All that I had read of the canvases was mere colourless phrase-making. After the first shudder had passed, the magnetism, a hideous magnetism, drew you to the walls, the lunatic patterns began to yield up vague meanings; arabesques that threatened one\'s sanity became almost intelligible. The yelling walls seemed to sing more in tune, the flaring tones softened a trifle, there was method in all this madness and presently you discovered that there was more method than madness, and that way critical madness lay. You are not in the least converted to this arbitrary and ignominious splashing of raw tints, but you are interested—you linger, you study and then you fall to reading the philosophy of the movement. It is the hour of your apéritive, l\'heure exquise, when you take your departure, and out on the noisy Rokindam, [Pg 266] not far from the Central railway station, you rub your eyes and then note that the very chaos you resented in the canvases of the Futurists is in the streets—which are being repaved. Snorting motor-cars and rumbling busses go by, people seem to be walking up inclined planes, the houses lean over and their windows leer and beckon to you; the sky is like a stage cloth and sweeps the roofs; you hurry to your hotel and in strong tea you drown your memories of the Italian Futurists.

It is only fair to give their side of the case. This I shall condense, as the exuberant lyricism and defiant dithyramb soon became monotonous. They write like very young and enthusiastic chaps, and they are for the most part mature men and experienced painters. Luckily for their public, Signor Marinetti and his friends did not adopt his Siamese telegraphic style in their printed programme. They begin by stating that they will sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and boldness. The essential elements of their poetry will be courage, daring, and rebellion. Literature has hitherto glorified serene immobility, ecstasy, and sleep; they will extol aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step, the somersault, the box on the ear, the fisticuff. They declare that the world\'s splendour has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car, its frame adorned by great pipes, like snakes with explosive breath, a roaring motor-car, which [Pg 267] looks as though running on shrapnel, is more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace in the Louvre. Note just here the speed-mania motive. There is no more beauty except in strife. No masterpiece without aggressiveness. Poetry must be a violent onslaught upon the unknown forces, commanding them to bow before man. Now there is nothing particularly new in this. Great poetry is dynamic as it is also reflective (the Futurists call the latter "static"). They say they stand on the extreme promontory of the centuries. Why, they ask, should we look behind us, when we have to break into the mysterious portals of the impossible? Time and space died yesterday. Already we live in the absolute, since we have already created speed, eternal and ever present. This rigmarole of metaphysics betrays the influence of the Henri Bergson philosophy, the philosophy of rhythm and rhythmic motion. It is just as original; i. e., not original at all. Mother Earth is still spinning through space at the gait originally imparted to her by the sun\'s superior force. Mankind on her outer rind spins with her. Because we have invented steam and electric cars, we must not arrogate to ourselves the discovery of speed. What has speed to do with painting on a flat surface, painting in two dimensions of space? Wait a bit! We are coming to the application of rhythm to paint.

The Futurists wish to glorify war—the only health-giver of the world—militarism, patriotism, [Pg 268] the destructive arm of the anarchist, the beautiful ideas that kill, the contempt for woman. They wish to destroy the museums, the libraries (unlucky Mr. Carnegie!), to fight moralism, feminism, and all opportunistic and utilitarian measures. Museums are for them cemeteries of art; to admire an old picture is to pour our sensitiveness into a funeral urn, instead of casting it forward in violent gushes of creation and action. So set fire to the shelves of libraries! Deviate the course of canals to flood the cellars of museums! Seize pickaxes and hammers! Sap the foundations of the antique cities! "We stand upon the summit of the world and once more we cast our challenge to the stars." Thus F.............