• F. T. Marinetti, Zang Tumb Tuuum: Adrianople October 1912; Words-in-Freedom (Zang Tumb Tuuum: Adrianopoli ottobre 1912; Parole in libertà). Book (Milan: Edizioni futuriste di Poesia, 1914) (detail)
    F. T. Marinetti, Zang Tumb Tuuum: Adrianople October 1912; Words-in-Freedom (Zang Tumb Tuuum: Adrianopoli ottobre 1912; Parole in libertà). Book (Milan: Edizioni futuriste di Poesia, 1914), 20.2 x 14 cm. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome
  • Giacomo Balla, Trelsì. . . . Trelnò, 1914 (detail)
    Giacomo Balla, Trelsì. . . . Trelnò, 1914. Ink on paper, 27 x 20 cm. Private collection © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome. Photo: Luca Carrà
  • Francesco Cangiullo, Large Crowd in the Piazza del Popolo (Grande folla in Piazza del Popolo), 1914 (detail)
    Francesco Cangiullo, Large Crowd in the Piazza del Popolo (Grande folla in Piazza del Popolo), 1914. Watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper, 58 x 74 cm. Private collection © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome
  • F. T. Marinetti, Air Raid (n. 67) (Bombardamento aereo [n. 67]), 1915–16 (detail)
    F. T. Marinetti, Air Raid (n. 67) (Bombardamento aereo [n. 67]), 1915–16. Ink and pencil on paper, 21.5 x 27.5 cm. Collection of Luce Marinetti, Rome © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome. Photo: Studio Boys, Rome
  • Francesco Cangiullo, Piedigrotta. Book (Milan: Edizioni futuriste di Poesia, 1916) (detail)
    Francesco Cangiullo, Piedigrotta. Book (Milan: Edizioni futuriste di Poesia, 1916), 26.5 x 18.8 cm. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome
  • Benedetta (Benedetta Cappa Marinetti), Spicologia of 1 Man (Spicologia di 1 uomo), 1919 (detail)
    Benedetta (Benedetta Cappa Marinetti), Spicologia of 1 Man (Spicologia di 1 uomo), 1919. India ink on paper, 16 × 16 cm. Private collection © Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, used by permission of Vittoria Marinetti and Luce Marinetti's heirs. Photo: Luca Carrà

In one of their pivotal inventions, the Futurists conceived a style of free-form, visual poetry called parole in libertà, or “words-in-freedom.” Following F. T. Marinetti’s example, the Futurists liberated words and letters from conventional presentation by destroying syntax, using verbs in the infinitive, eliminating adjectives and adverbs, abolishing punctuation, inserting musical and mathematical symbols, and employing onomatopoeia. Words-in-freedom poems were read as literature, experienced as visual art, and performed as dramatic works. The Futurists published them in multiple formats and declaimed them at the Futurist serate (performative evenings).

While Marinetti introduced the form, many Futurists contributed their own interpretations. A group of pictorially, verbally, and aurally imaginative sketches for words-in-freedom (called tavole parolibere) originated in the revolutionary period of the 1910s. Giacomo Balla invented phonovisual constructions, while Fortunato Depero devised an abstract language of sounds he called onomalingua. Francesco Cangiullo’s Large Crowd in the Piazza del Popolo (1914) engages the themes of the city, the crowd, and upheaval. The circular structure of Carlo Carrà’s Chronicle of a Milanese Night Owl (1914) captures the sensory whirlwind of voices, sounds, and figures he encountered during a nocturnal walk in Milan.



WORDS-IN-FREEDOM
ARCHITECTURE 〉
〈 “HEROIC” FUTURISM