Letter: Back to the Futurists
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sir: Rhys Williams writes of aesthetics in the dressing rooms at Wembley Stadium ('Psychology offers colourful cure for football manager's blues', 19 February), but describes the copyist's mural as 'red samurai warriors', without acknowledging the inspiration behind it.
In fact, they are from Italy's Umberto Boccioni's Futurist sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, which can be seen in the Tate Gallery in London. A good choice of stimulus, I grant you. As Boccioni wrote: 'The force form, with its centrifugal direction, represents the potential of the living form . . . The spectator ideally should construct the continuity (simultaneity) evoked by the force form, the equivalent of the expansive power of the body.'
Many of the Futurists died in the First World War, and their manifesto advocated the purifying aspects of war which swept away the old to be replaced by the new, a view that a lot of people would disagree with. This is the only connection that I can see between the samurai and war, but the more important one was between sport and dynamism.
Yours faithfully,
CYNTHIA McLAGLEN
Huddersfield,
Yorkshire
19 February
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments