The “Futurists” of the early 20th century decorate the present walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in the “Rythms of Modern Life” exhibit. The British Prints in this display are organized around themes that engaged and dominated their imagination during this period. The theme that I feel was really captured by the prints in its collection is Speed and Movement. We can easily see how enthralled they were by the “sheer exhilaration of speed and motion,” as they used curves and twists to show rapid pace and direction.
The print that really screamed acceleration was The Merry-Go-Round (1929-30) by Cyril Edwards Power. The yellow, black, and dark blue colors were a great touch to the surreal feeling of this work. Power painted this solid piece of machinery to look as flexible as rubber so as to depict the great speed at which it’s travelling. The middle of the merry-go-round twists a bit to show the strain it’s enduring, and the riders are blurring into nothing but zig-zags as they’re hurled to the left. He converted this “innocent carnival ride into a demonic funnel of unstable energy,” but it excites you in a way that only fast motion can.
The Giant Racer, also by Powers, is a more realistic depiction of speed. It features a rollercoaster, which most of us have probably experienced, about to plung down a curved track. The twists of this print not only respresents the motion of this coaster but the smoothness of its path. The stands that hold the coaster up are jagged, but the track itself is rounded, and bends so as not to disrupt the the rapid path of the coaster. These shapes not only “give” it speed, but also direction.
In her print “Rush Hour,” Sybil Andrews shows a more subtle presentation of speed. Her image focuses on hurrying legs and feet of commuters boarding an escalator. The legs of the commuters are curved either forward or backward to show motion, but they’re only slightly curved to show that the speed is at a moderate pace. Their feet are slightly curved to show that when walking they also have a motion of their own apart form the legs. The curved forms of the escalators in the print recall those of Power’s The Giant Racer–they give the motion of the subject direction (we can see that the commuters are about to board a descending escalator.
The artists in this exhibit successfully portrayed the essence of speed and movement through their designs of curves and twists. Not only could you see the motion, but you could recognize its path/direction. Other sections of “Rythms of Modern Life” worth veiwing are: Vorticism & Abstraction; WWI; Urban Life/Urban Development; Industry & Labor; Sport; Entertainment & Leisure; and Natural Forces!