Legitimizing the Artist: Manifesto Writing and European Modernism, 1885–1915

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Intensive scholarship and extensive research characterize University of
Toronto associate professor Luca Somigli’s treatise on manifesto
writing as a process for legitimizing artistic creation in the period of
European modernism from 1885 to 1915. The stated intention of the book
is to consider how artists of the time reacted to the Janus-like
injunction of Arthur Rimbaud’s declaration, “Il faut кtre
absolutement moderne,” with its dual impact on both the interpretation
of art history and the forecasts for future artistic creation.

Central to Somigli’s examination is his explication of the manifestos
and manifesto writing that gave credence to and affected the literary
and artistic movements during the period of his study. Beginning with a
historical overview of the manifesto (1550–1850) as a legitimizing
process, he outlines its role for political and aesthetic movements and
their advocates, with particular reference to Symbolism and Decadentism,
and with a detailed analysis of the proposals of “The Impressario of
Decadence,” Anatole Baju. Then he positions Futurism as “the
overturning of Aestheticism,” using a study of Filippo Tommaso
Marinetti’s manifesto “Fondazione e manifesto del futurismo” as
the “modernaltry” between the movements of Decadence and Futurism.

Somigli’s third major emphasis concerns Futurism in England, its
reception in the English press, the attendant manifesto of the Futurist
painters, and a related text titled “The Exhibitors to the Public,”
which he regards as influential but “not a manifesto.”

Finally, he shifts his discourse from aspects of Futurism and Vorticism
to Imagism and the more familiar ground of the rhetoric and manifestos
of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot.

This study is recommended for academics, art theoreticians, historians,
and graduate or postgraduate students who are interested in the
legitimization processes for artistic creation. The extensive endnotes
and bibliographic references will undoubtedly aid them in their
research.