Schnelligkeit
Umberto Boccioni; Bauhaus
Description
Subject Matter:
As a central member of the Italian Futurists movement, Boccioni strove to engage with modernity in all aspects. The same year he created this design, he pubilshed the seminal Futurist text Pittura Scultura Futuriste (Futurist Painting and Sculpture). In it, he described the need for a new aesthetic that fit with the new life of modernity, which entailed throwing away and destroying anything that represented the old world.
This image of a cyclist shows the artist's engagement with this modern form of transportation (the bicycle), as a representation of the speed of modern life. The design reflects Boccioni's interest in representing dynamic movement and speed, which he would portray in numerous works, including the important painting Dynamism of a Cyclist, 1913 (Guggenheim, Venice). In those works, as in this lithograph, Boccioni explored how modern dynamic tensions can be represented. The only known lithograph that Boccioni produced, it was only published later in Weimar for a Bauhaus collection of contemporary printmaking.
Physical Description:
At the center of the page, there is an abstracted image with dark curved lines and crosshatching. Thick dashed lines reach out from the left side of the image towards the top and bottom of the work. The artist signature is in the stone (l.r.) "Boccioni".
Usage Rights:
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