GiACOMO BALLA Italian (1871 - 1958)

Boccioni’s Fist - Lines of Force II

1916 - 17 reconstructed 1956 - 58 cast 1968, painted brass, 33 × 31½ × 13 in. Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1972

Balla’s early abstract geometric style in painting and sculpture was derived in part from the streams of light and air caused by the passage of a speeding car. Christened “lines of speed and force,” those diagonal lines formed the basis for sculptures such as Boccioni’s Fist - Lines Of Force II, which was originally assem- bled in cardboard and later reconstructed from sheet metal. Named for Boccioni (1882 - 1916), Balla’s student and a founder and leading theorist of Futurism, Boccioni’s Fist - Lines Of Force II translates Boccioni’s idea of the body into an abstract form in motion. The “figure” strides ahead vigorously, boldly riding the wave of the future. His fist is thrust out in front of him to physically break the bonds with the past. A drawing for this sculpture appeared on the mast- head for the magazine Futurismo and became an emblem for the group, as well as a monogram used later by Balla. This construction is made of brass which has been painted bright red to give the composition a high-impact, racy look. In keeping with the artist’s fascination with the correlation between Futurist art and machine technology, the surface is highly polished and gives the piece a smooth, sleek finish.

1. Can you see the human figure in this sculpture? The title of the work is Boccioni’s Fist - Lines Of Force II. Where is the figure’s fist?

2. The Futurists liked speed and movement. Does this bright red sculpture remind you of anything fast that moves? A red race car? A ? fire engine? What else? GiACOMO BALLA Italian (1871 - 1958)

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Son of a chemist and amateur photographer, Giacomo Balla was born in Tu- rin, Italy, in 1871. With the death of his father in 1883, Balla helped to support his family by working for a lithographer, and developed an interest in painting. He took classes at night at the Academia Albertina, and moved to Rome in 1895 to become an artist. He associated with a group of artists and writers who were concerned with the scientific and therapeutic uses of electrical energy, and with the humanis- tic concerns of socialism. After a visit to Paris in 1900, he returned to Rome and set up a teaching studio, where artists Gino Severini and Umberto Boccioni were his students. Bal- la became increasingly interested in the way artists perceive and depict aspects of modern industrialized life. This fascination with technology was central to the Futurist movement, launched in 1909 when Italian poet Filippo Tommasso Mari- netti’s “Manifesto of Futurism” was published on the front page of the Parisian newspaper Le Figaro. The Futurists wanted to celebrate cultural and technological innovations and discard what they perceived as the static and irrelevant art of the past. They glorified the beauty of the speed, power, and movement inherent in such advances as trains, automobiles, and buses, positing that the modern machine would provide well-being for society as a whole. Balla composed his own “Mani- festo of Futurist Painting” along with Severini and Boccioni in 1910, but he did not exhibit with the Futurists until 1912. The Futurists adopted the Cubist technique of simultaneously depicting an object from many sides in order to imbue it with a sense of dynamism. Searching for the pictorial equivalents of motion and light, Balla’s paintings became more abstract. He depicted the movement of speeding automobiles through a series of diagonals, the wheels becoming expanding spirals of light and color. Translating this style to three dimensions, he experimented with constructions in various ma- terials, describing these “plastic complexities” in his 1915 manifesto “The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe.” As the center of Futurist activity moved from Milan to Rome after World War I, Balla assumed more of a leadership role within the movement. Along with Mari- netti, Balla tried to keep the movement alive, but the war had softened the initial zeal. Boccioni, who had been a driving force in the group, had died during his mili- tary service in 1916, and much of the Futurist enthusiasm was diluted. Working in his apartment for the next four decades, Balla designed Futurist clothes, furniture, and decorative arts. But the movement was essentially forgotten until the 1950s, when it was re-evaluated by scholars who now recognize Futur- ism’s influence on later art movements such as Russian Constructivism and Ger- man Expressionism.