FuturBalla

The life and works of Giacomo Balla, from his apprenticeship in Turin to the great futurist moment.
In the beginning, Giacomo Balla learned his trade in Turin and entered the cruel, painful reality of society’s underclass with a penetrating, human eye. Parallel to the themes of suffering and alienation, the artist developed an original style with a wealth of glowing streaks, bold contrasts of light and dark, and daring perspective that constituted a unique and extraordinary model for the futurist generation.

Later, Balla embraced the poetics of futurism and addressed the themes of modernity in the chromatic synthesis of individual elements of light visible in the Iridescent Interpenetrations. This was followed by an exploration of the new dynamic reality with his Lines of Speed.

Balla discovered new categories of representation, and his vision plumbed the greatest depths in order to transcend the limits of the frame in an ever-greater response to life, the ultimate signal of a universal force whose power reverberates in the “voices of nature.

About the Author

Ester Coen, art historian, is among the international experts on futurism and Italian art of the first half of the twentieth-century.