After the first decade of the 20th century, the Corra and Ginna brothers began to write and publish their first literary works, with the aim of divulging their thought. In 1910, they published Vita Nova and A.B.C. Metodo ; two essays that have been methodically researched which introduced their anti-passatist views. The work included suggestions on how to achieve a complete renewal of the modern man, pointing to a need for a threefold approach to this development (that encompassed the body, mind and soul) which can also be reached with the same breathing exercises practiced in yoga. This development is most necessary to overcome one’s vices and dominate one’s passions, which have since the start been the cause for the ruin of a person’s body and soul.
In 1911, a small volume signed by only Bruno Corradini entitled “Proposals “was published. This text can be considered a sort of continuation of the essay Metodo, in that proposals of a moral order are matched to the psycho-physical method, always aspiring towards this same goal:
“… to take equal care of the three elements of man’s nature and with this achieve harmony and happiness: between the mind, body and soul.
Among the various influencers of this work, Mazzini, Wagner, Giovanni Bovio and G.P. Lucini are the most important; the latter, in particular, profoundly influenced Corra’s conceptional thinking on the birth of religion that he felt is innate to each individual.
The following publication, Arte dell’avvenire (Art of the Future), is the evolution, in the artistic sense, of the theories previously expressed and still based on an awareness of the vitalistic essence of nature. This work, also made public in 1910 (later republished in 1911 by Libreria Beltrami Editrice Internazionale in Bologna with the title Art of the Future. Paradox) was a result of direct studies and experiences, or rather experiments, in visual art, the text. This scientific dissertation clarifies the first aesthetic conceptions of the two young intellectuals. Here, the two authors attempted to demonstrate how a general interaction between the different arts ˗ music, sculpture, painting and literature ˗ is possible, and how these can be placed on the same level as science. As recalled by Mario Verdone in his book Manifesti futuristi e scritti teorici (1984):
” … in Nature and in Art one can find colours, sounds and shapes that merit impressions and moods. What does music create in us if not states of mind that undoubtedly come from sounds? What does painting create in us if not moods that undoubtedly come from colours and shapes?
On this basis, Bruno Corra and I ‘moved’ to seek a parallelism between the arts. We relied mainly on the art of music, which is the most exact, let us say, from a technical perspective.
In music, we have the Chord which is composed of several sounds emitted simultaneously, as fixed as the organ easily emits them. The Motive is composed of several sounds interspersed in time. The Symphony, several sounds, timbres etc., which is composed of Chords, motifs etc. haphazardly put together.
We made various experiments, especially with regards to the Chromatic Chord, which corresponds to the Musical Chord.
Already in 1907, Bruno Corra made a ‘sketch’, albeit primitive, of what could be a Chord of colours. Today, it would be mistaken for an abstractionist painting.
It was, as I said, in 1907, Bruno Corra was fifteen and I was seventeen.”
After the first decade of the 20th century, the Corra and Ginna brothers began to write and publish their first literary works, with the aim of divulging their thought. In 1910, they published Vita Nova and A.B.C. Metodo ; two essays that have been methodically researched which introduced their anti-passatist views. The work included suggestions on how to achieve a complete renewal of the modern man, pointing to a need for a threefold approach to this development (that encompassed the body, mind and soul) which can also be reached with the same breathing exercises practiced in yoga. This development is most necessary to overcome one’s vices and dominate one’s passions, which have since the start been the cause for the ruin of a person’s body and soul.
In 1911, a small volume signed by only Bruno Corradini entitled “Proposals “was published. This text can be considered a sort of continuation of the essay Metodo, in that proposals of a moral order are matched to the psycho-physical method, always aspiring towards this same goal:
“… to take equal care of the three elements of man’s nature and with this achieve harmony and happiness: between the mind, body and soul.
Among the various influencers of this work, Mazzini, Wagner, Giovanni Bovio and G.P. Lucini are the most important; the latter, in particular, profoundly influenced Corra’s conceptional thinking on the birth of religion that he felt is innate to each individual.
The following publication, Arte dell’avvenire (Art of the Future), is the evolution, in the artistic sense, of the theories previously expressed and still based on an awareness of the vitalistic essence of nature. This work, also made public in 1910 (later republished in 1911 by Libreria Beltrami Editrice Internazionale in Bologna with the title Art of the Future. Paradox) was a result of direct studies and experiences, or rather experiments, in visual art, the text. This scientific dissertation clarifies the first aesthetic conceptions of the two young intellectuals. Here, the two authors attempted to demonstrate how a general interaction between the different arts ˗ music, sculpture, painting and literature ˗ is possible, and how these can be placed on the same level as science. As recalled by Mario Verdone in his book Manifesti futuristi e scritti teorici (1984):
” … in Nature and in Art one can find colours, sounds and shapes that merit impressions and moods. What does music create in us if not states of mind that undoubtedly come from sounds? What does painting create in us if not moods that undoubtedly come from colours and shapes?
On this basis, Bruno Corra and I ‘moved’ to seek a parallelism between the arts. We relied mainly on the art of music, which is the most exact, let us say, from a technical perspective.
In music, we have the Chord which is composed of several sounds emitted simultaneously, as fixed as the organ easily emits them. The Motive is composed of several sounds interspersed in time. The Symphony, several sounds, timbres etc., which is composed of Chords, motifs etc. haphazardly put together.
We made various experiments, especially with regards to the Chromatic Chord, which corresponds to the Musical Chord.
Already in 1907, Bruno Corra made a ‘sketch’, albeit primitive, of what could be a Chord of colours. Today, it would be mistaken for an abstractionist painting.
It was, as I said, in 1907, Bruno Corra was fifteen and I was seventeen.”
Bruno Corra, Study on the effects of mixing four colours, 1907. Rome, Verdone collection.
Bruno Corra, Study on the effects of mixing four colours, 1907. Rome, Verdone collection.
The first edition of this manifesto is dedicated to those who, like them, feel oppressed by the anguish caused by the great confusion that permeates the entire contemporary artistic environment. In fact, a strong critical charge towards the artistic production of the time transpires. Their aim is therefore to present a theory that reacts to a totally unsatisfactory situation by encouraging new forms of artistic creation. This urgency for novelty can be linked to an initial approach to the ideas advocated by the Futurist movement.
Through the analysis carried out in this written work, Ginna and Corra outline four pure forms of art, which admit many others intermediate forms in between such as : 1 Agreement, 2 Motive, 3 Agreement˗Image, 4 Motive˗Image; and they examine them in the different fields of the arts, addressing:
“… towards the indefinite melody in music, towards the continuous line in architecture, towards the free expansion of colour in painting and of form in sculpture, towards continuous thought in literature.”
In the second edition, the term ‘paradox’ is added to the title with the intention of providing a warning and provocation to those readers who will surely judge their ideas by accusing them of falsehood.
In this essay, the two authors insist on the need for the work of art to possess a force in itself, that it shouldn’t therefore be a closed work: the image must not demand any enhancements by the viewer, but must violently impose itself on them.
The theories elaborated in the essay Art of the Future must be developed through experimentation and these were precisely the experiments that Bruno deals with in Chromatic Music; the volume The Shepherd, the Flock and the Bagpipe is composed of twenty-five pages. The story dwells on Bruno and Arnaldo’s first attempts at experimentation within a theatrical performance with the aid of a chromatic piano, i.e. a keyboard connected to numerous coloured light bulbs that turn on and off and project chromatic chords onto the stage. But the technical limitations imposed by the theatrical space meant that the Ginanni Corradini brothers’ attention shifted to the cinematographic medium, considered ideal for the development of a chromatic symphony.
These experiments, which have unfortunately been lost, took the form of four short films in which the abstract subject was created through games of light and colour applied both directly on the film and on the projection screen.
Manifestos
During Corra’s Futurist experience, the production of theoretical texts continued and led to the publication of several manifestos. In 1914, he and Settimelli signed the Futurist manifesto Pesi, misure e prezzi del genio artistico (Weight, measurement and prices of artistic genius), a manifesto in which the problem of critical evaluation was addressed, arguing that
“Criticism has never existed and does not exist. […] We Futurists have always denied any right of judgement to this amphibious, uterine and imbecile activity. The first criticism in Italy was born today through Futurism. But since the words critic and critique are now dishonored by the filthy use that has been made of them, we Futurists decidedly abolish them to favor and adopt the terms misurazione, misuratore.” in their place.
In other words, the authors declare that they would like to break with the tradition of previous literary and artistic criticism, even going so far as to repudiate it and affirm that the new criticism, like the new art, must be based on scientific foundations.
In 1915, while Ginna became increasingly interested in active painting, Corra devoted himself to the renewal of theatre, just as Marinetti and Settimelli had done previously. And it is precisely from the collaboration of these three scholars that the Manifesto of the Synthetic Futurist Theatre takes shape. Here, on this initiative with the collaboration of Emilio Settimelli, the essential characteristics of synthetic theatre, which had already been developed during the first experiments dating back to 1913, are affirmed:
“… futurist theatre will know how to exalt its spectators […]every evening will be a gymnastics that will train the spirit of our race to the fast and dangerous challenge that this futurist year will impose on us..”
The hope is therefore for a theatre that differs from the past performances the public is used to, which was divided into acts, where every scene is predictable and emotionless. The new plays must embrace the entire tumult of a life well lived; an imagined life, one that is dreamt, remembered and real. The main rule is to astonish.
The following year, in 1916, the manifesto La scienza futurista (Futurist Science) was published in the pages of L’Italia futurista, signed by Corra together with Ginna, Chiti, Settimelli, Carli, Mara and Nannetti. It is an anomalous manifesto, in which science with a capital S is abolished and a daringly exploratory, highly sensitive Futurist science is proposed […] influenced by far away intuitions, both fragmentary and contradictory at the same time, with the happiness to discover a truth today that destroys yesterday’s truth, all drenched in the unknown.
Emerging in this manifesto is both an awareness of a reality that remains unexplained and leaves man certain of his insecurities, and a feeling of revolt against positivism. And it is precisely in the points where the new psychic sciences and the study of occult energies are addressed that the contribution of the Ginanni Corradini brothers is most recognizable.
Also in 1916, after the experience of the film Vita futurista (Futurist Life), Bruno Corra signed the manifesto La Cinematografia Futurista (Futurist Cinematography), with Marinetti, Ginna, Settimelli and Chiti, who also participated in the making of the film. The manifesto theorised and formalised all the artistic possibilities given by the new expressive medium of film and called for the liberation of cinema – a means of expression better suited to the plurisensibility of a Futurist artist – to make it the ideal instrument of a new art that was immensely broader and more agile than all existing ones.
During his voluntary period of estrangement from the Futurist movement, Corra interrupted his production of theoretical works. However, in 1938, he returned to work with Marinetti on a new manifesto, which they signed in four hands entitled Contro il teatro morto. Contro il romanzo analitico. Against dead theatre. Against analytical novels.Against musical negroism. Futurist Manifesto. It is a text that is clearly critical of the restorative tendencies of the theatre that had developed during the Ventennio. At the same time, with the distinctive purpose of the last Futurist manifestos written before the war, the authors wish to reaffirm the leading role of the Futurist avant-garde in the Fascist cultural sphere.
Text by Lavinia Russo, supervision by Licia Collarile
