Futurism was an Italian art movement (1908 - 1944) which aimed to capture the dynamism and energy of the modern world in art. The Futurists wanted to move away from traditional notions about art which they believed to be outdated. Instead, they wanted to replace these with an energetic celebration of the machine age.
The key focus was to represent a dynamic vision of the future. They often created art depicting urban landscapes and new technologies including trains, cars and airplanes.
In order to achieve movement and dynamism in their art, the Futurists developed techniques in order to express speed and motion. These techniques included blurring and repetition. They also made use of lines of force, straight lines slicing though objects, a method adopted from the Cubists. The Futurists worked across a wide range of art forms including painting, architecture, sculpture, literature, theatre and music.
Giacomo Balla was a Futurist artist with a unique perspective. Unlike most Futurists, he was a lyrical painter and was no concerned with modern machines. He conveys a sense of speed and urgency that fit in with the Futurism movement and their fascination with the energy of modern life.
Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912) pictured above, shows an almost frame-by-frame view of a woman walking a dog on a boulevard (I love this painting! :)) The work illustrates his principle of simultaneity— the rendering of motion by simultaneously showing many aspects of a moving object. This interest in capturing a single moment in a series of planes was derived from Cubism, but it was also tied to Balla’s interest in the technology of photography.
