Giacomo Balla

Born on 24 July 1871 in Turin, Giacomo Balla showed an inclination for art and music as a boy, devoting himself in particular to the violin.

He then attended the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts and the Liceo artistico in Turin for a few months, as well as an evening course in drawing. Thanks to the photographer Oreste Bertieri, he met Pellizza da Volpedo, who with his pointillism was one of the most influential figures on the art scene of the time.

In Rome, where Balla moved in 1895, he met Duilio Cambellotti and the group of intellectuals who were building schools for the peasants of the Roman countryside. Combining this attention and sensitivity to the poor and marginalised with techniques typical of pointillism, he painted the cycle of The Living (The Beggar in 1902), The Peasant and The Sick in 1903, The Madwoman in 1905.

Giacomo Balla and the Futurist Manifesto

In 1903 he met Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini, who changed his pointillist artistic perspective.

Under the influence of the poet Filippo Marinetti, who launched the literary movement called Futurism in 1909, Balla and other artists published the ‘Technical Manifesto of Futurist Painting’ in 1910.

From this point on, his focus shifted to dynamism, in particular the chronophotography and photodynamism of Etienne-Jules Marey, Edward James Muybridge and Bragaglia, from which he derived works such as Girl Running on a Balcony (1912), Dynamism of a dog on a leash (1912) and The Hand of the Violinist (The Rhythms of the Bow) (1912).

Dynamism

Balla’s interest in movement led him to focus on cars – In order to convey the feeling of the speed of the race, he used a grid of triangles of light and shadow superimposed on diagonal lines and curves. In this area, the most famous canvases are, Dynamic Depths of 1912, Abstract Speed and Automobile Speed of 1913.

In the second decade of the 20th century, while in Düsseldorf to decorate the Lowenstein House, he produced the cycle of Iridescent Compenetrations, among the first examples of Italian abstract art.

Futurist philosophy applied to theatre and set design

In 1914 he worked with sculpture for the first time. He also designed and decorated futurist furniture and futurist anti-neutral clothes.

In 1915, he wrote the manifesto Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe with Fortunato Depero, with the intention of extending the Futurist philosophy to every aspect of society – Theatre, Furniture, Fashion. He explored set design, graphics and even acting. One example is the revolutionary set design created for the ballet Feu d’artifice with music by Igor Stravinsky in 1917, in which a synthesis of luminous geometries moves to the rhythm of music.

In 1925 he participated with Depero and Prampolini in the Exposition Internationale d’Arts Décoratifs in Paris, during which his tapestries were awarded prizes. In 1931 he signed the Futurist Aeropainting Manifesto and participated in the first Aeropainting exhibition, which was also his last Futurist exhibition. 

Giacomo Balla and the return to traditional painting

 It was only in his mature years that Balla’s interest turned towards traditional figurative painting, in particular towards a return to realism, as ‘pure art is in absolute realism without which one falls into decorative and ornamental forms’ (‘Italie 1880-1910. Arte alla prova della modernità’, Umberto Allemandi & C. E Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000).

Giacomo Balla died in Rome on 1 March 1958.