The Joyous Pain of a Flowering: The Manifesto's of Valentine de Saint-Point
The Joyous Pain of a Flowering: The Manifesto's of Valentine de Saint-Point
“WE MUST MAKE LUST INTO A WORK OF ART... We should desire a body like any other thing. Love at first sight, passion or failure to think, must not prompt us to be constantly giving ourselves, nor taking beings, as we are usually inclined to do due to our inability to see into the future. We must choose intelligently… and avoid uniting and satisfying any that are unable to complement and exalt each other.”
Futurism
Valentine and Her Work
Valentine was a writer, a poet, a painter, a playwright, an art critic, a performer, a choreographer, a lecturer and a journalist. She seems to me a woman unafraid to ask for and try everything. Which I think is very cool, but the chaos makes me feel a little uneasy. She was active in Parisian salons, and the associated with the literary and artistic movements of the Belle Époque. Despite this, Valentine's work seems to have been largely missed out in the recollections of Futurism. This may be because her art wasn't painting, there was no tangible piece of art left behind. Valentine did paint for time, but abandoned it in favour of dance. Today we might recognise the Valentine's art as Conceptual Performance Art. Valentine initiated a new multi-media performative form of art that she called ‘metachory’ (a combination of Greek words meaning beyond the dance). The first metachory took place in Paris, 1913. It began with a theoretical explanation, after which she performed a solo, almost naked, her body partly veiled by transparent silk strips. Her face was also veiled in order to focus the audience’s attention on her dance, not on her emotions,(remember the Futurists rejected sentimentality). Her movements were combined with words from her Poems of War and Love, light projections of mathematical equations, and perfumes. The music was disconnected from the gestures. Valentine wanted neither dance that expressed the emotions of the music, nor music that expressed the emotions of the dance.
Eventually she left France, the later period of her life was focused on politics. After the death of her mother and a trip to Morocco she converted to Islam. Valerie left France for Cairo in 1924. There she was harassed by French and British intelligence services. Due to this she had to end the publication of her review Le Phoenix (1925–7), which tried to reunite Christian and Islamic civilisations through art and culture. Valentine de Saint-Point died in Cairo in 1953, disillusioned but peaceful, inspired by Sufism and the desert.
The Futurist Manifesto of Lust
“WE MUST MAKE LUST INTO A WORK OF ART... We should desire a body like any other thing. Love at first sight, passion or failure to think, must not prompt us to be constantly giving ourselves, nor taking beings, as we are usually inclined to do due to our inability to see into the future. We must choose intelligently… and avoid uniting and satisfying any that are unable to complement and exalt each other.”
'IT IS NORMAL FOR THE VICTORS, PROVEN IN WAR , TO TURN TO RAPE IN THE CONQUERED LAND, SO THAT LIFE MAY BE RECREATED.'
'We must stop despising Desire, this attraction at once delicate and brutal between two bodies, of whatever sex, two bodies that want each other, striving for unity. We must stop despising Desire, disguising it in the pitiful clothes of old and sterile sentimentality. It is not lust that disunites, dissolves and annihilates. It is rather the mesmerizing complications of sentimentality, artificial jealousies, words that inebriate and deceive, the rhetoric of parting and eternal fidelities, literary nostalgia—all the histrionics of love.'
'We must get rid of all the ill-omened debris of romanticism, counting daisy petals, moonlight duets, heavy endearments, false hypocritical modesty. When beings are drawn together by a physical attraction, let them—instead of talking only of the fragility of their hearts—dare to express their desires, the inclinations of their bodies, and to anticipate the possibilities of joy and disappointment in their future carnal union.'
'And lust is a force in that it kills the weak and exalts the strong, aiding natural selection.'
What confuses me about The Futurist Manifesto of Lust is - it will say something really reasonable and empowering and then follow it with something bizarre that sounds like eugenics. Above I picked out a few quotes - things that resonated with me and things that totally baffled me. I've done the same with the manifesto below.
I don't think I would get along with the Futurists - they are too black and white, not to mention I live off sentimentality. I would even go as far as to say it defines my existence. Although, I don't totally disagree that it is rather pathetic.
“Manifesto of Futurist Woman (Response to F. T. Marinetti)” (1912)
'Woman who retains man through her tears and her sentimentality is inferior to the prostitute who incites her man, through braggery, to retain his domination over the lower depths of the cities with his revolver at the ready: at least she cultivates an energy that could serve better causes. Woman, for too long diverted into morals and prejudices, go back to your sublime instinct, to violence, to cruelty.'
'Woman should be mother or lover. Real mothers will always be mediocre lovers, and lovers, insufficient mothers, through their excess.'
'It is absurd to divide humanity into men and women. It is composed only of femininity and masculinity... composed at once of feminine and masculine elements, of femininity and masculinity: that is, a complete being.'
'But no feminism. Feminism is a political error. Feminism is a cerebral error of woman, an error that her instinct will recognize. We must not give woman any of the rights claimed by feminists. To grant them to her would bring about not any of the disorders the Futurists desire but on the contrary an excess of order'
'Let woman find once more her cruelty and her violence that make her attack the vanquished because they are vanquished, to the point of mutilating them. Stop preaching spiritual justice to her of the sort she has tried in vain. Woman, become sublimely unjust once more, like all the forces of nature!'
My Feelings
I feel like I am missing something about Valentine de Saint Point. In the articles I have read she is described as pioneering feminist. But the Manifesto of Futurist Woman condemns feminism by name. I like that she is a woman in history who got up and played with the men. But I feel very torn about the futurist woman, and I don't understand a lot of her words. I admire her, for sure. But I admire her in the way you admire someone who is (and because they are) so different to yourself.
The Futurist Manifesto of Lust, I have come across at a very pivotal time. As I face my own sexual freedom for the first time in my one life. The advice of elder women in my life, has warned me not to follow lust. That lust is not something women are capable of managing, that we are too fragile to not be hurt by it. That my lust is not honourable, forgiving, or fulfilling. I have ignored them for the most part. I've followed the song of lust at every opportunity to the bedrooms of others. The Manifesto of Lust - it inspires the warrior woman buried very deep somewhere inside of me. It let me trust myself that little bit more. Whereas , I don't have much to say about the Manifesto of Futurist Woman, nothing about it resonated with me.
Nothing Ought To Be Anything, And Who Put You In Charge?
So, manifestos. The thing about manifesto's is - reading other people's manifestos is kind of underwhelming for me. After a while it gets quite hard for me to actually care. I suppose a manifesto like Valentine's is saying 'this is who I am, this is what I/we stand for'. And I suppose that is a useful form of communication. But then what? I suppose the Manifesto of Lust inspired me to live a certain way, but it was a way that I was already living. I don't really like manifesto's that try and tell other people how to live or what is right and wrong. I don't like manifesto's that say this is how x should be. That just seems pointless and idiotic to me; nothing ought to be anything, and who put you in charge? I think the political connotations and format of a manifesto, also alienates me. It reminds me of domination and aggression, rather than truth and empathy. It scares me, and when I make art - when I consume art, I want to feel safe. I want my audience to feel safe. That is very important to me.
When I write my own manifesto - it will only be a compass for myself... and a communication tool, maybe.
Danchev, A. (2011). 100 Artists' Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists. London: Penguin. p29-p34, p38-p42
Sina, A., Wilson, S.. (2019). Action féminine Valentine de Saint-Point. Available: https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-16-summer-2009/action-feminine. Last accessed 25/08/21.
https://www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/10817/women-are-furies-valentine-de-saint-points-futurist-activism - 25/08/21
https://peoplepill.com/people/valentine-de-saint-point
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