• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
    • Awards & Honors, Pomp & Circumstance
  • Blog
    • Modern, 18th, 19th Century
    • Baroque, Rococo
    • Renaissance
    • Ancient, Roman, Medieval
    • Culture, Festivals, Music, Literature
    • Art News, Current Events
  • FaceBook
  • Pinterest
  • Italian with Melissa
    • Studentessa Matta Italian Site
    • Learn Italian at home with Melissa
    • Study in Italy with Melissa
  • Melissa’s Books
    • Melissa’s Author Website
  • Store
  • Sign Up & Connect
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter
    • YouTube
Art of Loving Italy

Art of Loving Italy

Art & Beauty are all around us.

Umberto Boccioni and Futurism

December 30, 2019 by Melissa Muldoon Leave a Comment

Dynamism of a Cyclist by Umberto Boccioni

As we turn the page and face a new year, I wanted to talk about an artistic movement that dared to break with the past and create a unique, forward-thinking expression of the world.

The movement I refer to is — Futurism.

In retrospect, Futurism might seem a little out-dated — being over 110 years old and all. But, still, at the time, it was considered rebellious, intellectual, and dynamic. It was a means of viewing the world through a new lens. One that dismissed decadence and tradition and focused instead on speed, movement, power, growth, and improvement.

Umberto Boccioni

Spear-heading this artistic movement was the
Italian artist Umberto Boccioni, who worked
in the years before the First World War.

Boccioni believed that scientific advances and the experience of modernity demanded that the artist abandon the tradition of depicting static, legible objects. The challenge, he thought, was to represent movement, the experience of flux, and the inter-penetration of objects.

Boccioni summed up this concept with the phrase
“physical transcendentalism.”

Born in 1882 in Reggio Calabria, but living most of his life in Genoa, Boccioni studied classical art and Impressionism. As a very young man, he met Gino Severini, and together they became students of Giacomo Balla. Balla was a painter who focused on the modern Divisionist technique, painting with divided rather than mixed colors, creating stippled fields of dots and stripes — an Italian take on Pointillism.

But, Boccioni was soon to leave Impressionism and Pointillism
behind and instead, turn an artistic page
to embrace something entirely new.

In Milan, Boccioni met Tomasso Marinetti, an Italian poet who published the Futurist Manifesto in 1909. Marinetti, firmly believed all artistic ties to the past should be broken. His ideas were violent and cruel and later linked to anarchism and Fascism. But the ideas presented by Marinetti — that of creating a new artistic vision resonated with Bocciano and he, along with Severini and several other Futurist artists took these concepts to heart and traveled to Paris and met Braque and Picasso. In France, the Italian artists also met Alexander Archipenko, and Raymond Duchamp-Villon.

Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

It was during this period in Paris that the Futurism movement began to take real shape.

Painting with a fresh eye and mindset, Boccioni claimed:

“While the impressionists paint a picture to give one particular moment and subordinate the life of the picture to its resemblance to this moment, we synthesize every moment (time, place, form, color-tone) and thus paint the picture.”

Who knows what Boccioni might have accomplished if he hadn’t died at the young age of thirty-three.

Like his fellow Futurists, he was an ardent interventionist and campaigned for Italy’s entry into World War I on the side of the Allies. In 1915, after Italy entered the war, he joined the fight. In August 1916, during a cavalry exercise, Boccioni fell from his horse and died the next day.

And yet, despite his early demise, 110 years later, Boccioni remains the best-known artist of the Futurist movement.

As we greet 2020, I hope you do it with the intent that inspired Boccioni — out with the old and the things that don’t work anymore and focus instead on creating a better vision of the world and future for us all.

P.s. As you charge off into the New Year — do your best to stay up on that horse and don’t fall off!

Happy New Year from Melissa
and the Art of Loving Italy Blog!

Share this post

Share
Tweet
Pin
Share
Share
Email

Related Posts

Filed Under: Modern, 18th, 19th, Contemporary

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Subscribe to the Art of Loving Italy Blog

Follow along on Instagram @studentessamatta

Who has read, Waking Isabella? Let's take a look a Who has read, Waking Isabella? Let's take a look at her:

Available on Amazon.  Link in bio. 

Waking Isabella is a story about uncovering hidden beauty that, over time, has been lost, erased, or suppressed. It also weaves together several love stories as well as a few mysteries. Nora, an assistant researcher, is a catalyst for resolving the puzzle of a painting that has been missing for decades. Set in Arezzo, a small Tuscan town, the plot unfolds against the backdrop of the city’s antique trade and the fanfare and pageantry of its medieval jousting festival. While filming a documentary about Isabella de’ Medici—the Renaissance princess who was murdered by her husband—Nora begins to connect with the lives of two remarkable women from the past. Unraveling the stories of Isabella, the daughter of a fifteenth-century Tuscan duke, and Margherita, a young girl trying to survive the war in Nazi-occupied Italy, Nora begins to question the choices that have shaped her own life up to this point. As she does, hidden beauty is awakened deep inside of her, and she discovers the keys to her creativity and happiness. It is a story of love and deceit, forgeries and masterpieces—all held together by the allure and intrigue of a beautiful Tuscan ghost.

#authormelissamuldoon #melissamuldoon #readingtime #newread #bookaddict #books #bookshopping #bookshelf #amazonkindle #amazonfinds #amazonreaders #happythursday
La parola del giorno: la Fiaba / le Fiabe Cappucc La parola del giorno: la Fiaba / le Fiabe

Cappuccetto Rosso e Cenerentola sono fiabe. 

"Ma tu credi ancora alle fiabe che ti racconta tuo fratello?"

Un alto uso di fiaba: "Fits like a glove." Questo vestito ti sta una fiaba! #fiaba #italianvocabulary #Italianimmersion #studentessamatta #learnItalian
Happy Monday! Today, I am sharing a snippet from m Happy Monday! Today, I am sharing a snippet from my book, Waking Isabella. It's a great day for a new book!
Link in bio.

#melissamuldoon #authormelissamuldoon #happymonday #mondayvibes #mondaymood #newread  #newreadingmaterial #booksandcoffee #booksandtea #booksofig #fictionwriter #fictionbook
Texas snowmen Texas snowmen
Snow snow snow Snow snow snow
Snow in Austin! Snow in Austin!
è stato molto divertente pubblicare una parola de è stato molto divertente pubblicare una parola del giorno durante il mese di dicembre. Quindi ho deciso di continuare la abitudine! 
Ecco la parola del giorno per questo venerdì, l'8 2021: Pizza da asporto = takeaway pizza.
Chi va di fretta o non vuole rinunciare alla pizza di qualità anche a casa propria, potrà telefonare e passare a ritirare la sua pizza da asporto in pochi minuti. #learnitalian #studentessamatta #studyinItaly #Italianimmersion #Italianword #vocabolarioitaliano

Melissa Muldoon © 2021 Built with and Genesis Framework by Bellano Web Studio