Giacomo Balla
Born – Turin, Italy 1871
Died – Rome, Italy 1958
Italian painter Giacomo Balla was one of the founders of Futurism, signing the Futurist manifesto which was published in 1910. In this document Balla, along with artists including Umberto Boccioni and Carlo Carrá, outlined their primary objective to depict movement, which they saw as symbolic of their commitment to the dynamic forward thrust of the twentieth century. Futurism celebrated the machine – the racing car was heralded as the triumph of the age – and early Futurism paintings were concerned with capturing figures and objects in motion. In Girl Running on the Balcony, Balla attempts to realize movement by showing the girl’s running legs in repeated sequence. Other paintings, such as Dog on a Leash, got to grips with the problem of recreating speed and flight by superimposing several images on top of each other. Inevitably, the advances that were made by this short-lived movement were eventually to be overtaken by the art of cinematography. Futurism was finished soon after the start of the First World War, after which Futurist ideas became increasingly associated with Fascism. Balla began to plough an independent path in his work, at first towards abstraction and, after 1931, towards figuration.
Masterpieces:
- Automobile and Noise
- Dog on a Leash
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.