Mario Castagneri 1892-1940

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was the founder of the Futurist movement and author of The Futurist Manifesto (1909) which advocated, among other things, the violent destruction of older art forms to clear the way for new modes of expression.  In 1924, Marinetti commissioned Castagneri, a succesful commercial photographer in Milan, to photograph the First National Futurist Congress.  Fascinated by the ideas he encountered there, Castagneri himself became a Futurist, exhibiting with the group throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.  Castagneri's work was heavily influenced by Fotodinamismo Futurista, the Futurist  photographic manifesto by the Bragaglia Brothers, Anton Giulo and Arturo.  The Bragaglias rejected the then-current, dueling trends of pictorialism and realism in favor of multi-layered photographic images that avoided a linear narrative.