In the year 2000, The Estorick Collection in London played host to a retrospective on the work of Fortunato Depero (1892-1960). He was a ‘Futurist’. Possibly, the ‘perfect’ Futurist. Strangely, however, Depero’s name is seldom mentioned in more generalised overviews of Italian Futurism, with Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916), Gino Severini (1883-1965), Giacomo Balla (1871-1958), Carlo Carra (1881-1966), Luigi Russolo (1885-1947) and, above all, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) the names synonymous with the movement. It seems as if Depero is seen as a sort of ‘second generation’ Futurist, a ‘poor cousin’ to the ‘big boys’, whose names appear time and time again in reference to the movement.

This exclusion of Depero is, in my opinion, to ‘miss the point' of Italian Futurism altogether, for this ‘Art’ movement was conceived – not so much as a new way of painting – but as a new ‘way of life’, a life which Fortunato Depero was both imbued with and exalting of, with not only his work but his lifestyle the embodiments of the tenets of the famous Futurist manifestos.

If Marinetti was the father of Futurism, then Depero was its 'perfect son'; Marinetti 'devised a scenario of confrontation in which every kind of human behaviour could eventually be seen as "art"', and it is arguably Fortunato Depero who best embraced this gesantkuntswerk approach to the movement.

Little has been written about Depero outside of 'matter of fact' biography; his later success as a commercial artist seeming to render his work unworthy of the critical analysis of a 'Fine Artist'; I could quote twenty descriptions of Boccioni's The City Rises (1910-11) based on the research I've done for this essay. I cannot find one critical analysis of a Depero's work.

I intend to discuss Depero's early painting to illustrate how well he understood and exalted the multiple ideas of Futurism, and then – by use of illustrations culled from the Bolted Book (1927) and his commercial work for Vanity Fair and Campari – to argue that it was Depero who ultimately fused all the tenets of Futurism into one, giving this 'movement that put idea before style' a style all its own.

There are several factors which may contribute to Depero’s exclusion as the ‘key’ figure of Italian Futurism; working primarily in the visual arts, he was however not one of those to sign the Futurist Manifestos on painting (1910). Secondly, as he is remembered with great reverence for his contribution to graphic art in its commercial context (ie; his Campari ads), he has perhaps been delegated to ‘decorative’, denying him his rightful place as a Futurism ‘figurehead’.

The final factor which I believe contributes to Depero’s exclusion as a ‘key’ Futurist is the untimely death of Boccioni in World War 1. Whether or not one is a fan or a critic of Italian Futurism, it is difficult not to recognise the splendour, excitement and true inspiration of Boccioni’s work, his Unique Forms Of Continuity in Space (1915) seen as the genesis of much modern sculpture, his Futurist paintings (The City Rises, The Street Enters the House) considered seminal works of 20^th Century art. With this in mind, I believe that there is a genuine and global fondness and respect for Boccioni (and quite rightly) and that to embrace Depero as the ‘perfect Futurist’ is somehow seen as denigrating Boccioni. "By the end of 1914, the first phase of Futurism was drawing to a close," writes Herschel B. Chipp, adding that; "the group calling itself Futurist which formed around Marinetti after the war had little in common, either in artistic principals or in the quality of their achievement, with the original movement."

Fortunato Depero is one of 'the group calling itself Futurist' which Chipp dismisses as being less talented (and less 'Futurist') than the movements originators, an opinion which I hope to challenge in the course of this essay, endeavouring to restate Depero's place in the movement and to hopefully illustrate how the factors which play against him vis-à-vis his inclusion as a 'first wave' Futurist could actually work for him, the emphasis placed upon his gesantkuntswerk approach to his life and to his work.

Above all, I intend to demonstrate by visual reference to Depero's seminal work Bolted Book (1927) his adherence to the tenets of The Futurist Manifestos and how (whilst adhering to the rules of the movement), he pushed the ideas set out by Boccioni's manifestos on painting and sculpture to their furthest limits, ultimately creating something which – whilst Futurist – was entirely new, entirely his own, and which gave this 'movement which put ideas before style' the style for which it is best remembered.

Before discussing Fortunato Depero’s place in Italian Furturism, it is essential to look at the movement itself; its tenets, born of the first manifestos, key to my argument vis-a-vis Depero’s inclusion.

Many would state that the birth of Italian Futurism actually has a birth day; February 20^th, 1909, when F.T Marinetti, poet, millionaire and famed publisher of the avant-garde literary publication Poesia published the first Futurist Manifesto in the French newspaper, Le Figaro. Published under the title The Foundation and Manifesto of Futurism, Marinetti set out to announce to the world the explosive intentions of the movement.

"We had been up all night, my friends and I," he begins, "under the Oriental lamps with their pierced copper domes starred like our souls – for from them too burst the trapped lightning of an electric heart." And it is these ‘electric hearts’ which were to beat of the rhythm of movement as a whole, this first manifesto promising; "to glorify the love of danger, the custom of energy, the strength of daring." To "sing the great masses agitated by work, pleasure, or revolt," to sing "the nocturnal vibration of arsenals and docks beneath their glaring electric moons; greedy stations devouring smoking serpents; factories hanging from the clouds by threads of their smoke". To "sing of large-breasted locomotives bridled with long tubes, and the slippery flight of airplanes whose propellers have flaglike flutterings and applauses of enthusiastic crowds".

In short, Marinetti’s Manifesto of Futurism promised to celebrate and exalt all aspects of modern life (urbanity, industry, technology, electricity, speed, force, dynamism, action, violence, transport), and furthermore, it was hoped that this philosophical and artistic progress would be realised at the cost of everything that came before ("We will destroy museums and libraries" cried Marinetti – a cry which was more or less ignored in all but metaphorical context, thank goodness.) In short, if Marinetti had an enemy, it was The Past, and Futurism was seen as a way of liberating Italy from its Renaissance aesthetic, the world from its Classical tradition.

The first Futurist manifesto was certainly an eye-opener for the art world in general; it was meant to be. F.T Marinetti was no fool when it came to public relations (Robert Hughes describes him as 'the first agent-provocateur of modern art), and the strident and aggressive manifesto was, to my mind, as calculated to whip up some interest via shock tactics as it was to announce a new philosophy. Unlike Cubism, which was born of an intellectual idea by Picasso and Braque and executed in silence, Futurism was, from the onset, a great publicity machine, operated like a ‘company’, the managing director Marinetti, the collected board members a glittering array of super talents; Boccioni, Severini, Carra, Balla, Russolo, and (as I hope to convince) Fortunato Depero.

Again taking Cubism as our comparison, we can see clearly from this first manifesto that where Cubism was a new way of looking at ‘Art’, Futurism hoped to bring about a new way of looking at the world; Picasso and Braque’s interests were confined to the canvas, whereas Marinetti’s insane vision took on all aspects of daily, modern life. Yet to view Marinetti’s as some sort of prophet for ‘The New World’, a ‘mystic of modernity’, is to truly give him more credit than is due; although there is no doubt that Futurism was a genuine and heartfelt concept, it was also hoped to be a means of making money and of replacing Paris with Rome and Milan as the centres of the art industry. Yes, it had a very clearly defined socio-political and artistic agenda, but the economic agenda at work was never denied. Boccioni and his friends had no interest in being the ‘antiquated hussar trousered artists’ of Montmartre, but hoped to earn a tidy living from their work. This is not to denigrate their genius, but to applaud their true sense of modernity; they wanted success, and happily, they found it.

Over the following few years, this assembled group of Italians-On-A-Mission gave us manifestos on more or less everything they could manifest upon; painting, scultpure, music, and – most important to this part of our study – literature. For it is Marinetti’s proposed ideas on literature that I personally believe provide ‘key’ to Depero’s graphic vision, the ‘lock’ being found in the form of Futurist painting.

Here then, we find a burgeoning movement with its manifesto set out and its painters and writers at work; exhibitions were mounted, leaflets distributed, essays written and 'events' staged. The dynamic wheel of Futurism was truly rolling.

Yet where was Fortunato Depero at this stage in the development of the movement? Having been brought up and schooled in the then-Austrian province of Trentino, 1910 found the eighteen year old Depero returning to his birthplace of Rovereto, exhibiting twice in 1911 works of 'social realism' and 'symbolism'. So little is known of Depero's movements during his teenage years that one can only guess that he had not been remotely aware of Futurism until 1913, when a trip to Florence put the Futurist newspaper Lacerba into his hands. I would hazard that he had not been aware of Futurism until this point simply because he embraced it with the fervour of the converted, travelling to Rome a few months later to see an exhibition of Boccioni. (Rembering that Rovereto is some distance from Rome and that the young Depero was, at this point, working as mason's assistant, this was an expensive trip to make and (we could guess) indicative of a very genuine passion in Futurism.)

Moving to Rome the following year, he met Balla, who was to become something of a mentor to the teenager, as well as Marinetti. In April and May of that year, Depero was the only artist exhibiting at the Sprovieri Gallery's 'Esposizione Libera Futurista Internazionale' to sell any paintings. He used the money to set up his own studio, where he started building what he described as 'motion-noisy-plastic-complexes' (which seem to be large, semi-mechanised sculptures of little practical purpose), which Boccioni visited at the beginning of 1915. A few weeks later, Fortunato Depero was invited by Boccioni, Balla, Carra and Marinetti to 'officially' join their circle.

History may have decided not to count Fortunato Depero as a 'first wave Futurist'; the 'first wave Futurists', however, did. From their obvious interest in the talented youngster and their inclusion of him in their number, it seems that the fact that he was not present at the 'genesis' of Futurism wasn't important to them. It was where he was in 1914 (not where he wasn't in 1911) which mattered.

Yet simply because someone was not at the genesis of an idea, does it follow that they cannot be its greatest exponent? Does it follow that they cannot go on to embrace the philosophy, master the techniques and possibly surpass the originators in their execution of the theory? Is Depero 'less' of a Futurist because he wasn't present at the signing of the first painting manifesto? The Futurists themselves did not seem to think so. And if he is seen by history as some sort of 'hanger on', a Futurist 'groupie' with little to offer himself, it must be remembered that Depero was producing Futurist canvases alongside Boccioni and Balla, a point which seems to be forever overlooked. Why? Is it because of his status as 'late comer' to the movement? Very possibly, especially when it was the Boccioni show of 1913 which first inspired Depero in the realms of Futurism. With this in mind, he is perhaps seen as a 'copyist', his work derivative of the 'master' and of contributing in itself little to the movement as a whole other than in the realms of the decorative.

However, it takes only the swiftest glance at a Depero canvas of the period placed beside those of the 'first wave' Futurist painters to see that not only was the younger artist's work extremely original, his status of 'late comer' can be seen as working to his favour in terms of his understanding of the Futurist manifestos on painting; in short, he had had the opportunity to see exactly what Boccioni, Balla and Russolo had been trying to do, and I use that word deliberately; by their own admissions Boccioni and Severini were experimenting with the concepts of Futurism; their manifesto had promised to give the world paintings full of 'movements', 'dynamism', and 'electricity', yet putting these concepts into practise on canvas with a different matter. Whether or not their beautiful and vibrant paintings are a testimony to their success in this mission or not is a matter of personal opinion; I would argue that they are.

Although the Futurists visit to Paris in 1911 (at the insistence of the Paris based Severini, who was eager that his friends in Milan become aware of Cubism) did not include Depero, by the time he saw a Futurist canvas, many of them had been revamped to incorporate the ideas of Picasso and Braque, this 'Cubo-Futurist' revision something which the young Depero not only understood but thoroughly embraced, as we shall presently see. However, if the fact that Depero did not shake hands with Picasso in 1911 is a possible explanation for his exclusion as a 'real life' Futurist, then I would offer this; neither did Russolo or Balla, and their position in the movement in never questioned.

As mentioned above, the Cubist obsession with mass and void which so enthralled Boccioni, Carra et al was not lost on the young Depero; his Decomposition of a Little Girl Running (1914) plays well with mass and void (as well as embodying the Cubist penchant for lettrism, which we shall discuss later.) We are unaware of which of the little girls is 'the' little girl (that is, which little girl is meant to represent the 'immediate' moment in time, as opposed to which of her multi images precedes or follows her.) What appears to be a tree trunk is at the same time behind the splendid man with the striped tie, and in front of him. The lettrism hints at a postered wall, and yet the gentleman with the bowler hat to the right of the canvas has parts of this poster upon his face. And the light itself, coming down in huge, fractured chevrons appears to us as 'mass', although logically, we know that it is 'void'.

This Cubo-Furturist 'fracturing' and the constant questioning of mass and void is clearly understood by Depero far beyond the realms of a mere 'copyist'; his mastery of the theory is so evident.

Later canvases see a more mature Depero playing with Cubo-Futurist theory in a much more original and stylised form. 1917's Rotation of a Dancer-Girl with Parrots presents us with a colourful and dynamic image where the 'shadow' of the dancer transpires to be no shadow at all, bearing little relation to the figure. The eye of the yellow parrot is seen as 'void' in the faux-shadow image, thus turning what should be the shadow of a solid object into a shadow 'puppet', as if cast by a human hand pretending to be a parrot (even though the very solid 'mass' of the 'real' parrot is clearly evident.)

The entire canvas is broken down into four geometric planes of varying size, and his use of bright, flat chroma hints that he had seen (and enjoyed) Synthetic Cubism. Depero takes his understanding of Cubism to its furthest reaches in his handling of the dancer's head; where is it? When we think we've located it, it turns into another parrot. The fact that find the word 'rotation' in the title should be a clue, and had things been different, we could argue that we are in fact seeing a multiple image of the same parrot. But we can't. There are clearly three different parrots, two of which become the dancers head whilst, at the same time, never becoming the dancers head. Rotation of a Dancer-Girl with Parrots is a painting which bursts with fun (some of that fun at the expense of Synthetic Cubism; could that inexplicable third leg clad in a clown-like stocking be a gentle poke at Picasso's harlequins?)

Yet in this painting – as with all of Depero's work on canvas – we find a solid use of bright, solid chroma and an extremely smooth, flat facture. True, Decomposition of a Little Girl While Running has areas of 'scratchy' facture (the little girl herself, the bottom right hand corner of the picture plane), yet none of his work could be considered 'Divisionist'. And in terms of his inclusion as a 'first wave', 'die hard' Futurist, this can present a problem.

For reasons only known to himself, Boccioni declares in his Technical Manifesto of Painting (1910) that "painting cannot exist today without Divisionism", that "for the modern painter", it was "essential and necessary." Fortunato Depero did not use Divisionist techniques in his work in either facture or palette. Is this perhaps why he is excluded? If so, I would venture that it's relatively easy to demonstrate why this reason for exclusion holds no water.

Firstly and foremost, I would state that it seems strangely 'at odds' for Boccioni to advocate an adherence to an artistic convention of the previous century when, in almost the same breath, he states that "all form of imitation must be despised"; the whole 'thrust' of Futurism was to embrace the 'new'. Of course, there is the possible explanation that he believed that via Divisionism, the dynamism of light and movement could be best transferred to canvas (Robert Hughe's sees the Futurist use of Divisionism as 'a means of analysing energy and so skirting the inherent immobility of paint on canvas').

Hughes also argues that by embracing Divisionism, the Futurists were paying homage to Signac, a 'non violent anarchist'. Yet as Boccioni does not mention Signac in his Technical Manifesto, and there is no mention of the French painter in the earlier Futurist Manifesot on Painting, I am more inclined to veer towards Tidsall and Bozzlla's view that Boccioni's love of Divisionism was born of his attachment to the Italian painters Giovanni Segantini (1852 – 1920) and Gaetano Previati (1868 – 1907), 'Symbolist' painters who 'ultimately had little to do with Signac's theories'. However, Futurism had little to do with Symbolism, yet the Italian Symbolist interest in light – albeit natural light – was to remain a source of inspiration to The Futurists, and Segantini's belief that 'the thoughts of the artist must no longer turn to the past, but forge ahead to the future which he preconceives' a pre-Marinetti plea.

However, much as he demands the use of Divisionism, Boccioni's own interpretation of it is so original that it becomes something absolutely new (one could even call it 'Boccioni-ism', so far removed is the facture from that of Signac or Matisse.) Fine threads of luminescent colour interweave with each other like strands of glistening lametta, the vibrating blues and reds of The City Rises giving a sense of sweeping motion, the gradual 'thinning out' of palette by use of dissipated stippling of the colour field setting the entire canvas into a dynamic whirl.

If we are to agree that Divisionism (or a very individualised interpretation of it) was seen as the most 'practical' way of attaining motion, electricity and dynamism on a canvas, surely it would follow that an artist who did not adhere to some sort of Divisionist theory would 'fail' in his attempts, thus rendering him a 'lesser' Futurist. Not necessarily. As we have seen with both Decomposition of a Little Girl Running and Rotation of a Dancer-Girl with Parrots, Depero's early canvases are 'pure Futurist' – and achieve their goals without reverting to or reinventing a 19^th century idea, making them (in my opinion) 'truer' to the aims set down by Boccioni himself; they 'do not imitate'.

The almost God like worship the first wave Futurists for electricity found it's way onto the canvas, the most obvious early attempt at capturing this new technology found in Balla's Street Lamp (1909), where thousands of iridescent chevrons of red and gold radiate outwards from the centre of the picture plane, the electric lamp itself a dynamic, vibrating pod of golden white. Severini handled the issue of electric light very differently, but with equal charm, in The Boulevard (1909), where his Proto-Cubist handling (remembering that Severini was based in Paris and had been exposed to Proto-Cubism via his association with Picasso and Braque well before Boccioni's 1911 visit) transforms the light of the street lamps into yellow triangles, headlights conceived as small, yellow circles with radiating beams - tiny, child-like suns in his bustling, urban landscape.

Yet in both cases, the artists are trying to show electric light itself, to 'Kill The Moonlight', as Marinetti had instructed. This visual representation of electricity itself was worked to a greater or lesser extent in the work of all the first wave Futurists, the most impressive being perhaps Boccioni's The Forces of the Street (1911) where huge golden-white chevrons of electric lights emanate from somewhere off the top of the picture plane, booming down onto the flattened, broken planes of his Cubo-Futurist street, the force of the light itself seeming to shatter the scene into a myriad of fractured, splintered planes.

We find that in discussions of the Futurist obsession with depicting electric light, Depero's name is again not included. However, if we look at his work from roughly the same period (and beyond), we see that the pictorial representation of electricity is as key to Depero's work as it was to the others'.

Turning again to Decomposition of a Little Girl While Running,it seems, at first glance, to be such an explosion of Futurist ideas (motion, dynamist, Cubo-Futurism, lettrism, urbanity), that the importance Depero places on electric light in the composition aren't immediately obvious. Yet once the eye has taken in the multiple images dancing across the picture plane (the running girl, the moving head of the man on the street, the fracture view of the city below), it becomes clear that the entire scene is lit with the 'same' representation of electricity as used by Boccioni in The Forces of the Street; splintered chevrons which seem to 'crack' the images it hits as it travels through the scene.

Turning again to Rotation of a Dancer-Girl with Parrots, it is obvious that the scene is lit with electric light; not only do we know this 'logically' (she is performing on a stage which, by 1917, were lit by electric light), but the shadow cast on the wall behind her is too sharp, too 'stark' to have been lit by candlelight or 'nature'. However, it is within the realms of his later graphic work that Depero reaches his most stylised and playful heights vis-à-vis the visual representation of electricity, as we shall later see.

Using the same method of analysis, if we turn to Boccioni's Technical Manifesto of Painting and read his thoughts on the depiction of movement (another chief component of Futurist art as promised by Marinetti) to see how brilliantly Depero adapted this idea to his own work, with special emphasis placed upon its inclusion in his strictly commercial work of the '20s.

"Everything moves, everything runs, everything turns rapidly," wrote Boccioni, A figure is never stationary before us, but appears and disappears incessantly."

This idea of motion was primarily executed via two, chief methods; the use of what has become known as 'Futurist Force Lines' (and the resulting 'chevron' shape so typical of the movement), the other, the fractured multiple images which are hoped to indicate our perception of an object or body in motion. "Thus, a galloping horse has not got four legs," wrote Boccioni, "it has twenty, and their motion is triangular."

The gesture which we would reproduce on canvas shall no longer be a fixed moment in universal dynamism. It shall simply be the dynamic sensation itself.

Although the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting elicits some pretty tall orders, it is a testimony to the Futurists enthusiasm to see the many different and exciting ways each painter grappled with this challenge.

In The City Rises, Boccioni uses his thread like Divisionist stroke to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by the incredible challenges of motion, his Farewells from the States of Mind triptych (1911) using the fractured picture planes borrowed from Cubism to present us with a multiple vision of the train and the landscape, inviting us to set the scene in motion in our minds. Boccioni's working of 'motion' takes on a more abstracted view; The Farewell's multiple-viewed train plays on a psychological level – just as a passing train shows us, the spectator', a myriad of different views of itself, so does Boccioni's painting.

The violent excitement found within the realms of Carra's Funeral of the Anarchist Galli (1911) is achieved by multiple force lines indicating the movement of the batons as they sweep downwards in dramatic attack. The experimentation with stop-action photography by Muybridge and Marey in the 1880s proved of great analytical inspiration to Balla, whose obsession with the portrayal of movement reached its most playful and delightful height in 1912's Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, where the artist has borrowed from stop motion photography and presents us with multiple images of the dog's paws, its owner's feet and (most imaginatively) the swinging leash as they promenade down the street.

Again, we find a pre-War Depero handling the theme of motion in 1914's Decomposition of a Girl Walking in which he uses the multiple image technique inspired by Mayer's photographs and borrowed from his friend and teacher, Balla. However, if we look at his post-War painting, we find that he adheres to the importance of motion, but represents it in a very different way visually.

1922's Multiplied Cyclist gives us an ultra stylised view of motion, the cyclist shown at three stages of his passage, the wheels of his bike sending forth the 'electric folds' of energy we have already seen in Depero's work, the entire canvas 'framed' with exciting, spiky chevrons.

As we will later see, The Futurist ideal of 'motion' and was never to leave Depero, it is difficult to find an image in the Bolted Book where dynamism is not implied.

Synthesesia is another factor of pre-war Futurist painting which we see in both Depero's work on canvas as well as his graphics. This idea of painting 'sounds, noises and smells' which Carlo Carra discusses in his manifesto of 1913 had already found its place in Futurist painting, and was a truly wonderful aspect of the dynamic and perpetually vibrating Futurist canvas. The 'rrrrrreddest rrrrrrreds that shouuuuuuut' and the greeeeeeeeeeeens that screeeeeeam' had already been used to beautiful synethethsetic effect in Boccioni's City Rises where we can almost hear the 'swish, rush' of the stampeding horses and the cheering crowds. Severnini's Cubo-Futurist 'clash of the acute angles' in Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin places us in the middle of the all the fun, and we can 'hear' the clinking glasses, the chattering, the music….

Russlo's 'dynamic arabesque' in Music (1911-1912) actually shows us a physical representation of music as if the sound is some sort of ectoplasm of colour haunted with the faces of either the audience or the notes themselves, and Boccioni actually tells us the sounds he wants us to hear in his 'Free Word Paintings', where he takes the Cubist penchant for lettrism to new heights by presenting us with a myriad of collaged words, words which – when taken as a clashing and clattering 'whole' – imitate the bustling, never ending noise of the city.

Again, we find Depero in full command of this very Futurist idea. In 1915 he gives us Noise Graphism (Rumorgrafia), a paper and ink study which is a hint of things to come in the Bolted Book. Worked in red and black against a neutral, beige background, Depero's thick red lines, both smooth and jagged, travel across the picture plane and are clearly meant to represent the direction of sound. I would guess that the difference in shape of the red lines represents an increase and decrees in 'volume' (the jagged red line being the 'loudest' part of the picture). And what exactly is being said? What does Depero want us to hear? The letters and shapes in black are clearly the 'noise' itself, and although at first glance the black lettrism appears to be just that – letters – closer examination reveals that apart from the nonsensical 'T.R' and 'T.K' which repeat throughout the canvas, the rest of the 'lettrism' isn't 'lettrism' at all, merely peculiar shapes which give the appearance of being letters, but which aren't at all.

Clearly, this is all about 'noise', just as the title implies – and Depero makes it even more clear by writing 'Rumorgrafia' in big, black letter in the upper right hand of the piece and, just in case this isn't clear enough, he then explains that he is 'writing in noise' ('Scrittura dei rumori') in red beneath, adding the date (1915), and of course, the 'Depero', worked in thick, black letters, which was to become a key visual component to much of his work in the Bolted Book.

A much later painting (1926's Radio Fire-Up) has got to be mentioned in the context of synethesia, simply because it is so imbued with this idea - as well as being so much fun. The 'firing up' of the radio is actually seen; the swirling arabesques of orange represent the 'fire', one huge, crackling chevron of bright yellow the 'electricity'. The radio itself is seen in a fractured assembly of electrical components, none seeming to bare any relation to each other (it is as if Depero has taken wireless apart and laid the pieces out on a table). Best of all is the megaphone from which the sound (represented by wavy blue and white lines) flows – and standing in the midst of the blue sound waves we find the surprising inclusion of a bull. One can only guess what it is doing there, but as one guess is as good as the next, I would venture that the tune the radio is playing a popular song, possibly of Spanish origin, which may be all about toreadors. Who knows? Yet the entire canvas just crackles with electricity, and one comes away with a real sensation of being present at the moment when a wireless is 'fired up'.

So far, we have been mainly looking at Depero's paintings as a means of illustrating his Futurist vision, yet it is not within the realms of painting that Depero is best known; it is in the realms of graphics which finds him at his greatest heights, with even those who ignore him as a 'true' Futurist praising him for his contribution to 20^th Century design. And I believe that it is within the wonderfully playful and dramatically striking world of Depero's graphics that we can best see how he, above all others, not only adhered to but truly celebrated the tenets of Futurism in his work.

By use of images culled from Depero's Bolted Book of 1927, I will return to all the Futurist elements we have already discussed and show how they reach their most stylised (and stylish) height in Depero's graphics; how this 'movement without a style' found a very recognisable one in the inter-war years, one which not only adheres to all the Futurist demands, but becomes something all its own in Depero's graphic work.

Depero Futursismo (more commonly known as the Bolted Book ) was a limited edition (it had a projected print run of 1,000 but fell short of this figure), was conceived and executed by Depero himself by way of a retrospective of his graphic design work (Futurist posters, flyers, costumes, fabric and toy designs) from 1913 until the date of publication. 177 pages (some blank) and printed on paper of different colours and textures, it is known as the Bolted Book because of Depero's cheeky choice of binding; in the spirit of the world of mechanism and industry, Depero binds his book with nuts and bolts, a 'gimmick' which I believe was as tongue in cheek as it was eye catching.

If one wants to know who Fortunato Depero really was, it is impossible to do so without studying the Bolted Book – it is a culmination of his most creative Futurist ideas – a true representation of his work.

And at the absolute core of this work is the idea of words; an idea which found its first Futurist feet with Marinetti, feet which then carried the Cubist loan of lettrism into pre-War Futurist painting and reached their dancing climax in Depero's Bolted Book. Forgetting everything which was born of Futurism (the paintings, the sculptures, the fist fights), what was Futurism above all else; it was a movement of words. Manifesto followed manifesto, each making written promises of the visual delights to follow; in short, when it comes to Italian Futurism, the word came first – the painting followed. And it was the importance of 'The Word' which Depero, above all others, realised was at the heart of Futurism.

Before we examine Depero's use of 'The Word', it is essential to briefly turn again to Marinetti, whose experiments in 'Free Verse' and the idea of doing away with the 'so-called typographical harmony of the page' led to a weird and wonderful (albeit short lived) adventure into the realms of 'Words-In-Freedom', whereby all manner of punctuation and paragraphing was eschewed, words arranging themselves in strange, non-objective patterns on the page. Marinetti's novel, Zang Tumb Tumb (1914), where floating words and phrases seem to 'land' on the page, forming dynamic designs which have absolutely no relation to the 'nauseating idea of the book' which Marinetti so hated (or said he did.)

Marinetti's interest in typography is clear, yet words were to also play an important role in Futurist painting. As we have already seen, the lettrism borrowed from Cubism played an important part on the Futurist canvas, and it was only a matter of time before the words became the Art. Carra's 'Free Word Paintings' such as 1914's Patriotic Celebration (a.k.a Interventionalist Manifesto) used a multitude of collaged words which, taken together, made no sense, but taken as a whole, screamed the sounds of the city.

However, it was Fortunato Depero who, in my opinion, truly understood the potential of 'The Word', and a first glance at the images found in the Bolted Book elicits the immediate question; Is this text – or is this Art? As I hope to illustrate, Depero used 'The Word' as a vehicle to carry all the tenets of Futurism we've already looked at (motion, dynamism, electricity, etc) to their most stylish heights.

Starting with the idea of 'dynamism', Page 95 of the Bolted Book finds one in a series of 'revolving' graphics; text is split into four equal quarters, each numbered and headed at juxtaposed at angles, so that the second section of theme two ('Cubismo'), is upside down in relation to theme one ('Impressionismo'). Depero has thoughtfully given us a huge black arrow to indicate where we should start reading, but the only way we can read it is we put either the page – our ourselves – into motion. This idea of movement correlates perfectly to Boccioni's ideas vis-à-vis dynamism, and in just the same way that his Development of a Bottle in Space (1912, Fig.17) invites the viewer to literally move around the 'un-peeling' sculpture, so must 'move' around Depero's graphic (or have it move for us.)

The Bolted Book is full of these sort of games; page 91 (Fig.18) finds an interesting design of words which fan out around a central 'W', each phrase famed with a thick, black line so that where they meet, we are given a Futurist chevron. If this isn't enough, there are 'W's interspersed with each phrase – the letter a double chevron in itself. To read what is written, we have to tilt our heads, which seems quite straight forward and not too challenging – yet Depero suddenly tricks us by top-and-tailing the phrases, so unless we stand on our heads, we have no choice but to rotate the image in our hands if we want to make sense of it.

A similar game is played with what appears to be some sort of 'flyer' on page 85 (Fig.19), where Depero has superimposed three giant, red letters over what appears to be a perfectly horizontal text; however, it is only when we come to read the last paragraph that we realise he's placed it upside down, the 'trademark' arrow showing us which was to either place our eyes – or the text – in order to finish reading. Although the printed word is as important as the aesthetic value of the piece as a whole, it is difficult to imagine that Depero was as concerned with the content as with the form that it took; had the content of the text been more important than the 'look' of the piece, he would surely have made these flyers easier to read! Instead, he plays visual game after visual game, the overall appearance being far more 'arty' than informative, the 'look' of these flyers imbued with the same importance as the text.

This literal expression of dynamism which forces the viewer to move either himself or the image he's looking at is, to my mind, one of the most successful renderings of the Futurist thought on dynamism; just as we have to move our eyes and shift our focus to make sense of Boccioni's The Farewells, so must we do the same when confronted with Depero's graphics.

Turning to the Futurist obsession with electric light, we see that this was clearly a key component to Depero's aesthetic intent throughout his career, and we see him modify, perfect and – above all – personalise his depiction of it. Two beautiful examples can be found in the Bolted Book; 1915's Ricamatrice - Architecttura Della Luce (pen and ink, Fig. 20) finds an abstracted image of a woman sitting at an embroidery frame, her work illuminated by the most dazzling of electric lights. Thick, hearty beams emanate downwards in graceful folds, folds which Depero has given 'depth' to by a surprising use of chiaroscuro. It is the dazzling electric light which 'matters' in this piece, the seated figure as unable to work without it as the picture is itself.

Yet Depero's interest in the electric light is surely at it's most striking and 'fun' in 1915's Discussione Del 3000 (Pen and Ink, Fig.21). Above a scene of robotic, fighting men, the electric light so beloved of first wave Futurists has been transformed into a stylised and dancing 'Christmas tree', the beams of which pulsate downwards and outwards in chiarosuroed bands, the light 'contained', as it were, within the dimensions of the beam itself.

I would also argue that the wonderfully egocentric graphic featured on page 145 of the Bolted Book (Fig.22, undated) is also a nod at electric light. A later piece, I would argue that the multiple 'Depero', with it's alternating red and black letters, seems to 'flash' at us like an electric sign. So although not a representational view of electricity, it could perhaps be considered a subliminal one.

Depero took his interest in the visual representation of electricity beyond that of the just the electric light; page 7 of the Bolted Book (Fig.23) shows a typically 'Depero-esque' graphic illustration from the mid 1910s. The image central to the piece depicts some sort of industrial power drill, worked in black and red against cream coloured background. The drill is imbued with electric power, for we 'see' this electricity as it sends forth the spiky shock waves of power. This jagged rendering of 'power' is found in many of Depero's pieces, even work in which machinery per se is neither in evidence nor a theme in the narrative (Figs. 26) examples of Depero's ideas for fabric patters and taken from the Bolted Book illustrate how he retains this 'jagged' motif to imbue his work with the 'electric' quality which is key to Futurism.)

The importance that both Marinetti and Boccioni placed upon electric light in their respective manifestos cannot be stressed strongly enough, and Depero's total understanding and execution of this tenet – not just in his early work but throughout his career as a graphic designer – seems to indicate that he was a 'true believer' in the aesthetic tenets of the movement. Whereas the surviving pre-War Futurists abandoned the idea of depicting electricity in their oeuvre (Balla's Patriotic Hymn, Carra's Antigrazioso, 1916) Depero remained true to the visual representation of electricity; it seemed key to his oeuvre, so much so that it is surprising that his name is omitted from discussion on this topic.

Yet Depero's Futurist world was not confined to page and canvas; co author (along with Balla) of the Manifesto of The Futurist Universe (1915), he promises a 'total fusion' of the Futurist ideal 'in order to reconstruct the universe making it more joyful, in other words by complete re-creation'. His materials for this 're-creation' were to be (according to the manifesto) 'coloured strands of wire, cotton, wool, silk, of every thickness. Coloured glass, tissue paper, celluloid, wire netting, every sort of transparent and bright material. Fabrics, mirrors, sheets of metal, coloured tin-foil, every sort of gaudy material. Mechanical and electrical devices; musical and noise-making elements, chemically luminous liquids of variable colours; springs, levers, tubes, etc.'

Setting himself quite a daunting task, he nevertheless delivered the goods his manifesto promised. 1919 saw the foundation of the Casa d'Arte Depero, where he and his wife, Rosetta, produced everything from tapestries to toys, the 1920s seeing him venturing into the realms of interior design with his Cabaret del Diavolo nightclub. Whether or not he abstained from spaghetti (which Marinetti deemed 'heavy, brutalising' and given to 'inducing scepticism'') it is impossible to say, yet it's clear to see that to Depero, Futurism was not only a way of art, but a way of life – which is what Marinetti had wanted it to be when he put down his ideas in the first Manifesto in 1909.

It was during the 20s that Depero found the 'niche' which would forever place him in the popular imagination; that of commercial advertising. From '25 to '33, he was head of publicity for the Italian aperitif producer, Campari, producing a series of wonderful images printed in multiple from his original maquette of paper collage (Fig.24). American fashion magazine's Vanity Fair hired him to design a series of front covers, again, printed from a collage maquette (Fig.25). In varying hues of grey or brown paper, Depero took the idea of the fashion illustration and abstracted it into Futuristic shapes, the depth given by the layering of the paper.

His commercial work was extremely successful, and I wonder if his success in this field was at the cost of his inclusion as a 'Fine Artist' and, ergo, a 'first wave Futuist'. I would argue that if one considers his commercial work and extension of his aesthetic and philosophical vision, that they are – by definition – 'Fine Art' in themselves.

I asked David Wolfe, lecturer at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, fashion illustrator and author of Everybody Wakes Up Naked if Depero's work for Vanity Fair can be considered an example of 'fine art'.

"Nobody in the industry today regards Depero as an 'illustrator', certainly not a fashion illustrator. His work for Vanity Fair and Vogue was in an editorial context, his fashion collages his own impressions on the time in which he lived. Had Vanity Fair wanted an 'illustrator', they'd have hired one. They did not. They chose Depero because he was 'in'; to use a modern idiom, he was considered 'trendy'. His work screamed 'Europe'. It screamed 'Modern'. Vanity Fair considered Depero a 'coup'; it would be akin to using Andy Warhol in the Sixties. They were showing off by being daring, and daring to them meant hiring a 'trendy' young Italian artist to do covers which were considered shocking. So yes, Depero's work for Vanity Fair can be considered as 'Art', because that is what they considered it to be and, more importantly, what they hoped their readers would consider it. Whether or not Depero did is another matter."

With this in mind, I would argue that if Depero's commercial success contributes to his exclusion as a Futurist 'master', it's an argument which falls very short. However, by answering this question, we find ourselves returning to the question posed at the beginning of this essay; was Fortunato Depero the 'perfect Futurist'?

If we take Marinetti's vision of Futurism based upon the first manifesto, then it soon becomes clear that the 'perfect' Futurst could not exist – not without risking incarceration for gross criminal damage and/or insanity! So no – Fortunato Depero was not 'The Perfect Futurist'. However, as we have seen, his life and his work was a continual testimony to the movement he believed in so deeply and so clearly enjoyed that he probably comes the 'closest' to the ideal, Futurist man that Marinetti had promised the world.

I recently commented to a friend that I was writing a paper on Italian Futurism. He said; "Oh, those Campari ads, right?" Well, wrong, but his comment seemed to indicate that in the mind of the 'layman', it is Depero's work which carries the flag of Futurism into the popular imagination of the 21^st Century, that it was he who gave this movement without a 'style' the style which is now often associated with it, fusing together as he did all the elements of Futurism into a lifetime's achievement. In short, this 'Jack of All Trades' was, in fact, a master of one; Fortunato Depero was a master of Futurism.

Boccioni, Balla, Carra, Severini and Russolo were great Futurist artists.

Fortunato Depero was simply a great Futurist.