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Lot Essay
The authenticity of this work has been verbally confirmed by Doctor Elena Gigli.
‘All things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing. A profile is never motionless before our eyes, but constantly appears and disappears. On account of the persistency of an image upon the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves, change shape, succeeding one another, like rapid vibrations, in the space which they traverse’. ('Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting', 1910, quoted in L. S. Rainey et al, eds., Futurism, an anthology, New Haven, 2009, p. 64).
One of the signatories of the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting, published in 1910, Giacomo Balla was not only one of the leading artists of the 20th Century, but also a tireless researcher, and experimentalist. He would spend weeks investigating the subjects he was most fascinated by: movement, speed, light. His inexhaustible inventiveness and curiosity made him one of the prophets of Futurism in art.
1913, the year in which Study for ‘Plasticità di luci + velocità’ was executed, is certainly one of the most fruitful and sought-after of Balla’s œuvre. Inspired by the newly-discovered studies on photodynamics and Chrono-photography, at that time the artist started investigating major themes, such as like the ‘course-lines’ and the flight of the swallows, and producing some of his all-time masterpieces. Plasticità di luci + velocità, (Stuttgaart Staatsgalerie), for which the present lot is one of the closest studies, belongs to the same year. With its vortex of lines, the present work captures movement and speed in their shifting dynamism, making it an iconic example of Balla's pioneering experimentations with these themes.
Study for ‘Plasticità di luci + velocità’ is offered today for the first time on the market, having been in the same private collection since the 1970s.
‘All things move, all things run, all things are rapidly changing. A profile is never motionless before our eyes, but constantly appears and disappears. On account of the persistency of an image upon the retina, moving objects constantly multiply themselves, change shape, succeeding one another, like rapid vibrations, in the space which they traverse’. ('Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting', 1910, quoted in L. S. Rainey et al, eds., Futurism, an anthology, New Haven, 2009, p. 64).
One of the signatories of the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting, published in 1910, Giacomo Balla was not only one of the leading artists of the 20th Century, but also a tireless researcher, and experimentalist. He would spend weeks investigating the subjects he was most fascinated by: movement, speed, light. His inexhaustible inventiveness and curiosity made him one of the prophets of Futurism in art.
1913, the year in which Study for ‘Plasticità di luci + velocità’ was executed, is certainly one of the most fruitful and sought-after of Balla’s œuvre. Inspired by the newly-discovered studies on photodynamics and Chrono-photography, at that time the artist started investigating major themes, such as like the ‘course-lines’ and the flight of the swallows, and producing some of his all-time masterpieces. Plasticità di luci + velocità, (Stuttgaart Staatsgalerie), for which the present lot is one of the closest studies, belongs to the same year. With its vortex of lines, the present work captures movement and speed in their shifting dynamism, making it an iconic example of Balla's pioneering experimentations with these themes.
Study for ‘Plasticità di luci + velocità’ is offered today for the first time on the market, having been in the same private collection since the 1970s.