Umberto Boccioni

The Italian artist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) was the leading theoretician of futurism, the most talented of its painters, and the creator of its first sculptures. He is considered the master of the innovative esthetic generated by the machine age.

Umberto Boccioni was born on Oct. 19, 1882, in Reggio Calabria. He went to Rome in 1900 and studied with Giacomo Balla, who revealed the theory of divisionism to him. Boccioni also studied at the Academy of the Brera in Milan. In 1904-1905 he visited Paris and Russia.

To Boccioni's searching spirit the meeting with the poet Filippo Marinetti in 1909 was an event of the utmost importance. Marinetti, the initiator and great orator of the futurist movement, converted Boccioni to his principles. Together with Gino Severini, Carlo Carrà, Balla, and Luigi Russolo, Boccioni signed the "Manifesto of Futurist Painters" in Milan in 1910.

Futurist Painting

Boccioni became the leading theorist of futurist art, both in painting and sculpture. He was the most intellectually active and artistically creative of all the futurist artists. One of his aims was to vitalize matter (Materia, 1912). Matter had to serve as the expression of emotion and states of mind (States of Mind, 1911). The term linee forze, or lines of force, signifies in Boccioni's work the energies which dominate matter and spirit. His famous picture Forces of a Street (1911) is a synthesis of the time and space elements and of form, color, and tone. All the lines of force are in action: the traffic in the streets, the light rays coming from the windows and doors, the light from the sky descending on the busy scene and adding a transcendental quality to it. Geometric forms and intensive colors are in perpetual interplay. The beholder is drawn into the vortex of this field of energies, which even includes "painted sounds." Figures float through the picture in a shadowy, schematic manner. What is more important to Boccioni than the representation of the figures is the human reaction to the experience of the forces of the street. Pictures like this are the esthetic reflections of the industrial era.

The painting Elasticity (1912) is the synthesis of the movement of a galloping horse. Similarly, a synthesis of human movement is found in the paintings Muscular Dynamics and Dynamics of a Human Body.

Futurist Sculpture

Boccioni's first futurist sculpture dates from 1911. In 1912 he wrote his "Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture," in which he propounded the use of unconventional, hitherto unacceptable materials. The "totality" Boccioni strove for was the simultaneous representation of the temporal evolution of an action. His revolutionary dictum for sculpture, "Let us open the figure like a window and include in it the milieu in which it lives," is illustrated by Development of a Bottle in Space (1912) and Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913). Even rays of light were formally incorporated in such sculptures as Head and House and Light.

Boccioni took part in all the important futurist exhibitions in Europe and America, beginning with the Paris exhibition of 1912. His book Pittura, scultura futuriste: Dinamismo plastico (1914) is the most comprehensive statement of futurism written by one of the original members of the movement.

Boccioni was wounded in World War I. While convalescing, he was killed in a riding accident in Sorte in 1916.

Further Reading

In English, Boccioni's work is discussed in Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Cubism and Abstract Art (1936); James Thrall Soby and Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Twentieth-Century Italian Art (1949); and Raffaele Carriere, Avant-Garde Painting and Sculpture in Italy, 1890-1955 (1955) and Futurism (1961; trans. 1963). There are several good works on the artist in Italian. □

Boccioni, Umberto (1882–1916). Italian Futurist painter, sculptor (the only major one in the movement), and art theorist. He was born in Reggio Calabria and in 1899 moved to Rome, where he worked as a commercial artist. In 1901 he met Balla, who introduced him to Divisionism. Balla's studio was a forum for Rome's artistic and literary avant-garde and it was there that Boccioni met Severini, who became a close friend. In 1906 he visited Paris and Russia, then after brief stays in Padua and Venice he settled in Milan in 1907. Over the next two years he experimented with various styles, but it was only after he joined the Futurists in 1909 that his career took off, and all his important work was done in the seven years between then and his premature death. He signed the two Futurist manifestos of painting (both 1910), wrote the one on sculpture (1912), and became the most energetic member of the group. Advocating a complete break with the art of the past, Boccioni was centrally concerned with the two main preoccupations of the Futurists—the production of emotionally expressive works and the representation of time and movement. In his early Futurist works he often showed an interest in social themes, particularly big city life, but later (especially after a visit to Paris in 1912, when he was influenced by Cubism) he tended to use his paintings more as vehicles for his theories than as comments on life around him. Eventually this tendency led him close to abstraction, in pictures such as Dynamism of a Human Body (Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan, 1913).

Boccioni's ideas were set out most fully in his book Pittura scultura futuriste: Dinamismo plastico (1914). In this he proposed that whereas the Impressionists painted to perpetuate a single moment of vision, Futurism synthesizes in a picture all possible moments; and in contrast to the objective outlook of Cubism, he claimed that Futurist painting aspires also to express ‘states of the soul'. In common with the other Futurists (following the ideas of the contemporary French philosopher Henri Bergson), he believed that physical objects have a kind of personality and emotional life of their own, revealed by ‘lines of force’ with which the object reacts to its environment. This notion is perhaps best shown in Boccioni's most famous piece of sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (casts in the Tate Gallery, London, MOMA, New York, and elsewhere, 1913), which vividly expresses bodily movement. His ideas about sculpture were extremely forward-looking. He advocated the use of materials such as glass and electric lights and the introduction of electric motors to create movement. However, he died in an accident whilst serving in the Italian army before most of his ideas could be put into practice. In some of the paintings done near the end of his life he in any case seemed to be turning away from Futurism to a more sober figurative style recalling the work of Cézanne (Portrait of Ferruccio Busoni, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, 1916).

Boccioni, Umberto (b Reggio di Calabria, 19 Oct. 1882; d Sorte, nr. Verona, 17 Aug. 1916). Italian Futurist painter, sculptor (the only major one in the movement), and art theorist. He signed the two Futurist manifestos of painting (both 1910), wrote the one on sculpture (1912), and became the most energetic member of the group. Calling for a complete break with the art of the past, Boccioni was centrally concerned with the two main preoccupations of the Futurists—the production of emotionally expressive works and the representation of time and movement. In his early Futurist works he often showed an interest in social themes, particularly big city life, but later (especially after a visit to Paris in 1912, when he was influenced by Cubism) he tended to use his paintings more as vehicles for his theories than as comments on life around him. Eventually this tendency led him close to abstraction, in pictures such as Dynamism of a Human Body (1913, Gal. d'Arte Moderna, Milan). In common with the other Futurists, Boccioni believed that physical objects have a kind of personality and emotional life of their own, revealed by ‘lines of force’ with which the object reacts to its environment. This notion is perhaps best shown in his most famous piece of sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913, casts in Tate, London, MoMA, New York, and elsewhere), which vividly expresses bodily movement. His ideas about sculpture were extremely forward-looking. He advocated the use of materials such as glass and electric lights and the introduction of electric motors to create movement. However, he died aged only 33 (following a fall from a horse whilst serving in the Italian army) before most of his ideas could be put into practice.

Boccioni, Umberto (1882–1916). Italian Futurist painter, sculptor (the only major one in the movement), and art theorist. He signed the two Futurist manifestos of painting (both 1910), wrote the one on sculpture (1912), and became the most energetic member of the group. Advocating a complete break with the art of the past, Boccioni was centrally concerned with the two main preoccupations of the Futurists—the production of emotionally expressive works and the representation of time and movement. In his early Futurist works he often showed an interest in social themes, particularly big city life, but later (especially after a visit to Paris in 1912, when he was influenced by Cubism) he tended to use his paintings more as vehicles for his theories than as comments on life around him. Eventually this tendency led him close to abstraction, in pictures such as Dynamism of a Human Body (1913, Gall. d'Arte Moderna, Milan). In common with the other Futurists, Boccioni believed that physical objects have a kind of personality and emotional life of their own, revealed by ‘lines of force’ with which the object reacts to its environment. This notion is perhaps best shown in his most famous piece of sculpture, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913, casts in Tate, London; MoMA, New York; and elsewhere), which vividly expresses bodily movement. His ideas about sculpture were extremely forward-looking. He advocated the use of materials such as glass and electric lights and the introduction of electric motors to create movement. However, he died in an accident whilst serving in the Italian army before most of his ideas could be put into practice.

Umberto Boccioni , 1882-1916, Italian futurist painter and sculptor. He played a primary role in the drafting of the manifesto of futurism in 1910 and was the major figure in the movement until 1914. In his famous, characteristic painting, The City Rises (1910; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City), he interpreted powerfully the technological turbulence of modern civilization. Influenced by Medardo Rosso, Boccioni turned to sculpture in 1912 and sought to translate light and motion into mass. His sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913; Mus. of Modern Art) embodies his concept of "lines of force" to replace the use of straight lines.