Do you feel the heights? The poet does, however, and he proclaims in his defense: “The more subjective is truth, the more objective is the subjective objectivity.”
Brusov’s point of view is expressed in the impassioned words of the historian of literature who appears at the end of the above-mentioned dialogue:
In the new poetry, that is, in the poetry of the last centuries, one observes a definite shifting of two currents. One school puts forward the primary importance of the content, the other—that of form; later the same tendencies are repeated in the two successive schools. Pseudo-Classicism, as a school, placed above all form not the “what” but the “how.” The content they borrowed from the ancients and then performed the task most important in their eyes—the elaboration of that material. The Romanticists, in contra-distinction to the Pseudo-Classicists, insisted first of all on the content. They admired the middle ages, their yearning for an ideal, their religious aspirations. Of course, the Romanticists contributed their did this, so to speak, casually, while actually they neglected the form of their verses; recall, if you will, the frolics of Musset or the carelessness of the poems of Novalis. The Parnassians once more proclaimed the primariness of form. “Reproachless verse” became their motto. It was they who declared that in poetry not the “what” was important, but the “how,” and it was none other than Théophile Gautier who invented the formula “art for the sake of art.” The Symbolistic school again revived the content. All this was in reality not so simple, schematic, rectilineal, as I expressed it. To be sure, all true poets have endeavored to bring into harmony both content and form, but I have in view the prevailing tendency of the poetic school as a whole. If my point of view is correct, then it is natural to expect that there is to come a new school, replacing the Symbolists, which will once more consider form of primary importance. At the appearance of a new school the doctrine of the old corresponding school becomes more subtle, more poignant, more extreme. The Parnassians went further than their progenitors, the Pseudo-Classicists. It is natural then to foresee that the new coming school will in its cult of form go further than the Parnassians. As such a school, destined to take the place of Symbolism, I consider Futurism. Its historic rôle is to establish the absolute predominance of form in poetry, and to repudiate any content in it.
The weak point of Futurism appears to be, as is the case with every revolutionary movement, the fact that alongside with the true fighters for new horizons straggle parasitic marauders, that on the heels of the sincere searchers of artistic truth tread nonchalantly buffoons and charlatans. The number of the latter is so great that the true prophets drown in the vast slough, and the public sees but the caricature side of the movement. Take for instance, the Post-Impressionist and the Futurist painters. Any unbiased and open-minded observer will admit that many of them, like Odilon Redon, Duchamp, Picasso, Chabaud, even Matisse, have created works which, whether you like them or not, possess the sure criterion of art: they stir you, arouse your thoughts and emotions. Yet how easy it is to smuggle into their midst colossal nonsense and counterfeit can be judged from the following episode:
A group of young painters in Paris decided to arouse public opinion against the unrestricted accessibility of the Independent Salon by proving that among the exponents of the exhibition such an “independent” artist as a donkey could find a place. The editors of Fantasio undertook to assist them in carrying out their plan. A manifesto was issued of which I quote a few pearls:
To art-critics:
To painters:
To the public:
A manifesto of the school of the Excessivists. Hurrah! Brother-Excessivists, hurrah! Masters splendid and renascent, we are on the eve of various exhibitions of banal and stereotypical paintings. Let us smash, then, the palettes of our forefathers; let us set fire of Joy to the pseudo-masterpieces, and let us establish great canons destined to rule art henceforward.
The canon is contained in one word: L’excessivisme.
“Excess in everything is a defect,” once said a certain ass. We proclaim the reverse: excess at all times, in everything, is the absolute power. The sun can never be too ardent, the sky too blue, the sea-perspective too ruby, darkness too black, as there can never be heroes too valiant or flowers too fragrant.
Down with contours, down with half-tones, down with craft! Instead—dazzling and resplendent colors! And so on. Bombastic phrases borrowed from Marinetti and his colleagues. The manifesto is signed Joachim Raphael Boronali. Boronali is the anagram of Aliboron—the French word for donkey. The jesters later explained that they intended by the euphony of an Italian name “to arouse with more certainty the admiration of the crowd.”