Umberto Boccioni.

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Biography

Boccioni was born in Reggio di Calabria but left for Rome when he was 18. There the painter Giacomo Balla taught him the neo-impressionist technique of divisionism: the dynamic use of elementary colours.

Photo: Synthèse du dynamisme humain (Synthesis of Human Dynamism), 1913.
Umberto Boccioni
Sculpture destroyed.
© Estate of Umberto Boccioni

In 1910, he met the spiritual father of Futurism, the writer Marinetti. He felt drawn to this young, revolutionary movement that advocated a positive belief in permanent innovation. The world was coming to terms with the unique possibilities offered by the discovery of electricity and the invention of photographic material. The artist had to participate in this process and not try to create aesthetic and timeless art in isolation. He had “to express and glorify modern life, which was continuously and unexpectedly being transformed by the triumphs of science”. Boccioni soon developed into a theoretician and leading figure of the futurism movement and wrote numerous manifestos. In 1915, when Italy became embroiled in the First World War, the patriotic Futurists, including Boccioni, joined the army as volunteers. They regarded the Italian involvement first and foremost as the last step towards national unification. Military life did not match the expectations of the highly motivated Boccioni at all. He wrote to a friend:

“I will leave this kind of life with the greatest contempt for everything that is not art. …. Compared to art, all other things represent nothing more than messing around, a rut, patience and memories”.

Five days after writing these words Boccioni died after having fallen from his horse.

Biography II

Umberto Boccioni   Italian Futurist painter, sculptor and writer who studied under Balla in Rome. Inspired by Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto (1909), Boccioni issued the Manifesto of Futuristic Painters (1910). He contributed to an exhibition of Futurist art in Paris (1912) and summarized its ideals in his book Pittura, scultura futuriste (1914). Characteristic works are the painting The City Rises (1910) and the sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) (above).

Source: The Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art and Artists (World of Art)

Trivia

After 1901 he was strongly affected by Balla's Divisionism; by 1907/08 he had veered in the direction of Symbolism.

In 1910 he became one of the original Futurists, signing the Manifesto and issuing the Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture in 1912.

He wrote a book about Futurism in 1914.

He volunteered for the war in 1915 and died as the result of an accident, after being wounded.

Two of the clauses of the Manifesto were:

'Universal dynamism must be rendered in painting as a dynamic sensation ... Motion and light destroy the materiality of bodies.'

His Unique Forms of Continuity in Space is in London (Tate).

They call the Futurists madmen, charlatans, clowns, rascals, bluffers, obfuscators, and even worse … --Giovanni Papini, 1913

Umberto Boccioni was perhaps the most versatile and impassioned of the Futurists--the literary, political, and artistic movement that flourished in Italy during the first half of the 20th century, proclaiming a revolutionary, spectacular style of life. His masterwork, Materia, a huge canvas painted during July and August of 1912, depicts the artist's mother seated on the balcony of her apartment at Via Adige, 23, in Milan. Her monumental, sculpted hands sit at the center of the painting, and behind and above her are the rooftops and factory buildings of the Piazza Trento and beyond. The Cubist energy of the composition is enhanced by an open window that reflects rays of light over her, illustrating simultaneous visual impressions of indoors and outdoors.

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Umberto Boccioni Books

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Umberto Boccioni Biography Books @ amazon.com (direct link)

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Umberto Boccioni.

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