Carlo Carrà, Guerrapittura (War-Painting), 1915.
Cover by the author.

This book, published shortly before Italy entered World War I in Spring 1915, is the final contribution by this artist to the Futurist Movement. A year later, Carrà left Futurism to work with Giorgio de Chirico on the conception of "Metafisica," a new movement in modern art.

Guerrapittura is also the summation of Futurist misunderstandings in matters of democracy and politics, and stands as a document of intolerance and anti-democratic psychology as followed by hundreds of Italian intellectuals. According to them and to the author, war was an "incentive to creativity" rather than an obstacle to it; "war meant nothing but art pursued with other means." The way the Futurists plunged themselves into war was, ultimately, a great, collective misunderstanding that led to such positions as that of Fortunato Depero. Depero used the title Guerra-festa (War-Feast) to describe one of his sriking tapestries, which was as colorful and ingenuous as a child, far removed from the violence and ugliness of war. This book, however, is full of "words-in-freedom," drawings, poetry and writings on art, and it should be considered essential to every survey on Futurist books.