Italian Futurism and “The Fourth Dimension”

Abstract

During the first three decades of the twentieth century, artists in nearly every major modern movement were influenced by a highly popular concept known as “the fourth dimension.” In this period, “the fourth dimension” signified a higher, unseen dimension of space which might hold a reality truer than that of visual perception. Linked closely to the philosophical idealism which dominated the era, belief in a fourth dimension encouraged bold, formal experimentation by liberating artists from the domination of three-dimensional visual reality. If some artistic advocates of a fourth dimension, such as the Cubists, did not reject visual perception completely, Kupka, Malevich, Mondrian, and Van Doesburg found support in the idea for their creation of a totally abstract art. The Futurists Boccioni and Severini thus joined a distinguished list of artists attracted to “the fourth dimension,” a group ranging from Analytical and Synthetic Cubists as well as Duchamp, Picabia, and Kupka, to Russian Futurists and Suprematists, American modernists in the Stieglitz and Arensberg circles, Dadaists, members of De Stijl, and even certain Surrealists.