Fontana spent from 1946 to 1958 working from a manifesto toward one gesture: a blade drawn once through a painted canvas. His Milan neon arabesque and auction record show how far the idea travelled.
italian-modernism
How a Paris newspaper page launched Italian Futurism
Marinetti’s 1909 manifesto on the front page of Le Figaro had no art to back it up. Boccioni’s 1913 bronze, later cast on a euro coin, gave the movement its defining image.