When I was reading The Futurist Manifesto, I began to feel a bit unease. The manifesto romanticizes war as if it is glorious and beautiful sight to behold, as if it’s “the only cure of world.” The reading mentions “We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.” and invoking apex predators like lions. The text also states that women are beneath consideration. It is very machismo and hypermasculine.

It is also reminiscent of fascism. The manifesto shines a warm light on patriotism and militarism, which are signs fascism. It also states how museums, libraries, and academic buildings should be razed to the ground and left behind. These were ideaologies that were common in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

The constructivist manifesto was a bit harder to understand but the way I interpret it as followed. Design and art should be separate. That in some ways being imaginative is childish. While design is meticulous and it should be functional instead of worrying about aesthetics. These points are touched upon many times, for example in one line it mentions that “We are not dreamers from art who build in the imagination: Aeroradiostations, Elevators, and, Flaming cities. We—are the beginning our work is today: A mug,
A floor brush, Boots, A catalog, And when one person in his laboratory set up A square.”

While El Lissitzky take on constructivism was about how for a long time the fine arts where stagnating, overrated, and losing meaning. But the introduction of new technology has caused art to “evolve.” He makes this apparent when bringing up photomontage and typomontage. How they make printing and design more exciting instead of being dull.