Overall

I think that Balla had an interesting career. He created many works of art that are shown all over the world in class rooms, museums, and other places. I really enjoy his one piece "Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash." I feel like there is many ways of looking at it and trying to understand what it really is. In his early time, Balla went through a very hard time when his father died before he turned 10 and lost his passion for what he loved, which was music. After learning most of his art works and his whole career, Balla is definitely one of my new favorite artists and I enjoyed doing this blog about him.

Swifts: Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences

'Swifts: Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences'
1913 -- oil on canvas

Balla spent most of his career studying the dynamics of movement and speed. The main subject of this painting is the flight of swifts; black wings whir before a window. He was inspired by photographic studies of animal locomotion. Balla created an image of motion pushed close to abstraction. The wings each represent a different position in a creation of motion, and the bird’s body is rendered in a line. Balla seems to science and establishes a new modern language for painting.






Source used:
http://bittleston.com/artists/giacomo_balla/

Numbers in Love

'Numbers in Love'
1924 -- oil on burlap

Balla took a series of numbers and broke it into the 2D print convention by ejecting them into 3D space. This kind of ejection now forms a different part of the standard repertoire of a computer graphics designer with typography. Text can move into 3D space, just like the Futurist painter wanted it to.

Source used:

http://bittleston.com/artists/giacomo_balla/

What is Futurism?

Futurism was an artistic and social movement that began in the early 20th century in Italy. It emphasized themes associated with concepts of the future, including technology, speed, violence, and youth. It was also associated with  objects such as the car and the airplane. It was a Italian phenomenon. The Futurists practiced in every medium of art, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, graphic design, industrial design, interior design, theatre, film, fashion, textiles, literature, music, and architecture. Key figures of the movement include the Italians Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, Antonio Sant'Elia, Tullio Crali and Luigi Russolo, and the Russians Natalia Goncharova, Velimir Khlebnikov, and Vladimir Mayakovsky. An important piece of art in Futurism is Balla's painting, Abstract Speed + Sound. Futurism influenced other art movements such as Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism, and Dada.

Girl Running on a Balcony

'Girl Running on a Balcony'
1912 -- oil on canvas

This particular piece of art is a kinesthetic study of a figure in motion. Mimicking the pointillist technique, Balla has not mixed the non-primary colors, but creates them by painting contrasting dots in close contact to one another. This technique is repeated throughout the picture's surface. The artwork does not have a central point of focus. It appears to be continuing outside the canvas to the spectator’s space, emphasizing the continuous character of the girl’s motion.




Source used:
http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/balla.php

Mercury Passing Before the Sun- Through a Telescope

'Mercury Passing Before the Sun- Through a Telescope'
1914 -- oil on canvas

Balla uses a set of primary and secondary colors combine with a set of bright complementary colors such as orange and blue. The tempera on paper gives the painting a beautiful texture with the different layers of paint. It has one on top of each other to create the different shapes, some geometric. The use of black and white colors for light and shadow work very well. The subject in this work of art doesn't seem like it could be easily identified. No one has ever really seen mercury pass before the sun through a telescope before. Balla could have portrayed mercury the way he had perceived it artistically.






Source used:
http://bittleston.com/artists/giacomo_balla/

Abstract Speed - The Car Has Passed

'Abstract Speed - The Car Has Passed'
1913 -- oil on Canvas

In the Italian Futurist group, Balla was a leading figure. He believed that the speed and power of machines, such as motorcycles and cars was the characteristics of the modern age and he wanted to express this main idea in his work. This piece of art was originally the right hand part of a triptych, a work of art that is divided into three sections or three carved panels. The left hand part of the triptych was called the "Line of Force + Landscape." The central one was called "Lines of Force + Noise." The main idea and theme of this triptych was the passage of a car along a while long road with blue and green forms, evoking sky and earth in the background. The areas with pinkish color show the exhaust fumes left by the passing car.

Source used: 

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=703

Speed of a Motorcycle

'Speed of a Motorcycle'
1913 -- oil on canvas

This painting led Balla to his second wave of Futurism. It was dominated by geometric shapes and colors. I think this painting shows a lot of movement and volume, just like the rest of Balla's work. 

Source used:
http://bittleston.com/artists/giacomo_balla/

Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash

'Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash'
1912 -- oil on canvas

This piece of art represents the phases of body displacement. It captures the repetition of the parts of movement: the tail of the dogs, the legs, the feet of the woman and the oscillating leash. In the early 20th century, it was the idea of chrono-photography that finally made its way onto a canvas. Using multiple limbs to show bodies in motion is something we can show in oil paintings now. This painting is one of the most striking works of art that's ever been found. The painting shows a lady walking a dog, we think the woman is a widow and obviously the dog is her pet. The widow is about 15 feet, solid and see through. The dog has 8 countable tails and its legs are lost in blurry overlays. The pictures shows a great sense of movement, if that is what it really is, and is shown with stark black forms and random flowing lace veils. Balla picked out a single detail that is completely random and turns it into the complete focus of the entire picture. 

Source used:
http://www.scienceandart.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=145:giacomo-balla-dynamism-of-a-dog-on-a-leash&catid=57:artworks&Itemid=97

Biography of Balla

(born, Torino 1871 — died, Roma 1958)

Giacomo Balla was born in Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy, on July 18, 1871. His father was a industrial chemist. When Giacomo was a child, he studied music and learned to love it. When he was 9, his father died, and his passion for music died. He began working in a lithograph print shop. By the time he turned 20, he decided to study painting at local academies and exhibited some of his early works. After he finished at the University of Turin, he moved to Rome in 1895. He met and married Elisa Marcucci. For several years he worked as an illustrator and caricaturist in Rome. His work was shown at the Venice Biennale in 1899, and was displayed at major Italian exhibitions in Rome and Venice., Berlin, Germany, Salon d'Automnein Paris and other different galleries. In 1900, Balla spent 9 months in Paris. There he discovered the existential space of metropolis on the light flooded and crowded nightly boulevards. In 1910, Balla wrote the 'Manifesto dei pittori futuristi' and the 'Manifesto tecnico della pittura futurista' together with Boccioni, Carra, Severini, and Russolo. Balla started experimenting with objects made of materials such as cardboard, fabric, aluminum foil, colored glass, and mirrors. After this experimenting, Balla became one of the co-founders of abstract sculpture. He moved away from Futurism and in 1937, he returned to representational art. Giacomo Balla died on March 1, 1958 in Rome, Italy.




Sources used:
http://impressionistsgallery.co.uk/artists/Artists/abc/Balla/biography.html
http://www.giacomo-balla.com/