Lot Essay
Between 1912 and 1914 Balla's research into the theme of motor cars in movement entered a new phase. According to his daughters, Balla positioned himself on a corner of via Veneto in Rome, in front of Palazzo Regina Margherita, and intently studied the passing of motor cars. He spent afternoons filling his sketchbooks with notes on the complex effect produced by the traffic, including the fleeting reflection of colours in shopwindows, and the movement of the shadows created.
A contemporary journalist reported in Humanities, 20th April 1913 "Balla is working up a picture showing the traffic in Via Nazionale in all its exuberance and noisy grandeur. He began by recording a series of objective annotations in a network, as if it were the diary of an automobile in motion; then came their subjective fragmentation in a sequence".
The artist explained his work by stating that in 1913 he had wanted to depict the passage of an automobile. The swelling and noise of the engine are represented by the intersecting lines which radiate from the front of the automobile. An impression of speed and displacement of air is created by the curved lines and concentric circles given off by the automobile, which fall below and behind it, in an overall attempt to render the sensations experienced by the passage of an automobile at high speed.
The present work is one of about forty dedicated to the examination of this theme, which began with the celebrated Dog on a Leash, 1912, now in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, which Balla called "my first analytical study of things in movement, the indispensable starting-point in order to be able to find the abstract lines of speed; like the first lines of the motor car in motion, objective first, then synthetic, fundamental bases of my forms-thought". Others works in the series include Velocità Astratta - l'Auto è passata, 1913, now in the Tate Gallery, Velocità e Paesaggio (Fig. 4 and 2), Velocità d'Automobile, 1912, now in the Musuem of Modern Art, New York, and Velocità d'Automobile, 1913, in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan.
Balla's fascination with the 'line of speed' was partly inspired by contemporary scientific research, particularly the photodynamism of the Bragaglia brothers which he saw for the first time at the end of 1912, when he returned from Dusseldorf. This revealed kineticism in action rendered visible by way of evanescent forms and luminous tracks. As a result Balla's previous interest in chromatic separation was joined with the chronophotographic multiplication of form in an attempt to depict the relation between the environment and a kinetic subject. By his painstaking research on the idea, Balla was able to depict the linear rhythms and geometrical schemes which constituted the abstract synthesis of movement.
The "linea della velocità" became a particularly personal trade mark for Balla. He presented it precisely and scientifically, as if in an engineer's manual, whilst at the same time endowing it with a poetic character, reminiscent of the flowing lines of Art Nouveau. This is revealed in Velocità Astratta - Auto in Corsa, an apparently abstract work, which is constructed around the skilfull manipulation of lines; the moving car is unevenly superimposed against the background of the country landscape. The car creates a line which penetrates the sky, made up of the three curved blue lines that extend from the bottom of the picture and curve up to the top left. The actual "linea della velocità astratta" is represented by the red form which apparently flits across the picture surface.
These quintessential Futurist pictures appeared in all the major Futurist exhibitions. For example, works from the series appeared in the Exposizione di Pittura Futurista organized by Giuseppe Sprovieri in Rome in February 1914, at the Doré Galleries in London in April 1914 and at the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco in January 1916.
The present work is to be included in the forthcoming volume of Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco's catalogue raisonné of the works of Giacomo Balla.
We are grateful to Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco for his extensive research and contribution to this catalogue entry.
A contemporary journalist reported in Humanities, 20th April 1913 "Balla is working up a picture showing the traffic in Via Nazionale in all its exuberance and noisy grandeur. He began by recording a series of objective annotations in a network, as if it were the diary of an automobile in motion; then came their subjective fragmentation in a sequence".
The artist explained his work by stating that in 1913 he had wanted to depict the passage of an automobile. The swelling and noise of the engine are represented by the intersecting lines which radiate from the front of the automobile. An impression of speed and displacement of air is created by the curved lines and concentric circles given off by the automobile, which fall below and behind it, in an overall attempt to render the sensations experienced by the passage of an automobile at high speed.
The present work is one of about forty dedicated to the examination of this theme, which began with the celebrated Dog on a Leash, 1912, now in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, which Balla called "my first analytical study of things in movement, the indispensable starting-point in order to be able to find the abstract lines of speed; like the first lines of the motor car in motion, objective first, then synthetic, fundamental bases of my forms-thought". Others works in the series include Velocità Astratta - l'Auto è passata, 1913, now in the Tate Gallery, Velocità e Paesaggio (Fig. 4 and 2), Velocità d'Automobile, 1912, now in the Musuem of Modern Art, New York, and Velocità d'Automobile, 1913, in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Milan.
Balla's fascination with the 'line of speed' was partly inspired by contemporary scientific research, particularly the photodynamism of the Bragaglia brothers which he saw for the first time at the end of 1912, when he returned from Dusseldorf. This revealed kineticism in action rendered visible by way of evanescent forms and luminous tracks. As a result Balla's previous interest in chromatic separation was joined with the chronophotographic multiplication of form in an attempt to depict the relation between the environment and a kinetic subject. By his painstaking research on the idea, Balla was able to depict the linear rhythms and geometrical schemes which constituted the abstract synthesis of movement.
The "linea della velocità" became a particularly personal trade mark for Balla. He presented it precisely and scientifically, as if in an engineer's manual, whilst at the same time endowing it with a poetic character, reminiscent of the flowing lines of Art Nouveau. This is revealed in Velocità Astratta - Auto in Corsa, an apparently abstract work, which is constructed around the skilfull manipulation of lines; the moving car is unevenly superimposed against the background of the country landscape. The car creates a line which penetrates the sky, made up of the three curved blue lines that extend from the bottom of the picture and curve up to the top left. The actual "linea della velocità astratta" is represented by the red form which apparently flits across the picture surface.
These quintessential Futurist pictures appeared in all the major Futurist exhibitions. For example, works from the series appeared in the Exposizione di Pittura Futurista organized by Giuseppe Sprovieri in Rome in February 1914, at the Doré Galleries in London in April 1914 and at the Panama Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco in January 1916.
The present work is to be included in the forthcoming volume of Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco's catalogue raisonné of the works of Giacomo Balla.
We are grateful to Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco for his extensive research and contribution to this catalogue entry.