GIACOMO BALLA, quotes by the artist on painting art in Italian Futurism
Giacomo Balla (1871 – 1958), his artist quotes on painting art; + life and biography facts. Balla was a senior painter-artist of the Italian Futurism art movement. Attracted by Marinetti’s explosive ideas Balla threw in his lot with Futurism art style in 1910 and co-signed the definitive version of the famous Futurist Manifesto. In his paintings Balla created a pictorial Futurist story of light, movement and speed. Moreover Balla was teaching in Rome two of the younger generation great Futurist artists Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini.
* At the bottom more biography facts, life stories & useful art links for the Italian artist Giacomo Balla. – the editor
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Giacomo Balla, his artist quotes on painting & Italian Futurism + biography and life stories
– In the evening I study a fair (preparing his later famous painting ‘Luna park in Paris’, he made in 1900, fh)… …if you could see the pomp and luxury of the merry-go-round and the stands and booths. Everything is decorated in Baroque-style, all gold and silver; there are mirrors, fabrics, and electric lightning. By night the whole thing is fantastic and rowdy. First of all I shall make a small picture and some drawings for illustrations.
* Balla, source of his biography quote: ‘Giacomo Balla (1871 – 1951)’, ed. Fagiolo dell’Arco, exh. catalogue, Galleria Nationale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, 1971)
– It (the great early photo of a moving girl by Jules-Etienne Marey, showed at the famous 1900 Exposition Universelle and seen there by Balla, fh) will interest artists because, in it, I have made a special study of the way of walking of this girl, and, in fact, I have succeeded in giving the illusion that she is in the process of moving forward.
* Balla’s art quote on painting movement as a famous Futurist art concept: ‘Lista”, Balla, catalogue raisonné, Edizione Galleria Fonte d’Abisso, Modena, 1982, p. 248
– They (his former pupils – the great Futurist painters Boccioni and Severini, fh) did not want anything to do with me in Paris and they were right: they have gone much further than I, but I will work and I too will progress.
* Balla, source of his quote referring to Boccioni and Severini, both great Futurism painters:from a letter; Balla was quoted by Umberto Boccioni to Gino Severini, Jan. 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 248
– Use materials (with materials Balla means here clothes, fh) with forceful MUSCULAR colours – the reddest of reds, the most purple of purples, the greenest of greens, intense yellows, orange, vermillion – and SKELETON tones of white, grey and black.
* Balla’s painter art-statement on how using colors in Futurist painting: unpublished ‘Futurist Manifesto of Men’s clothing’, Balla, dedicated to Marinetti, 1914; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148
– And we must invent dynamic designs to go with them and express them in equally dynamic shapes: triangles, cones, spirals, ellipses, circles, etc.
* Balla, his art-statement on the great Futurist principle of painting dynamic movement in modern life, from the: unpublished ‘Futurist Manifesto of Men’s clothing’, Balla, dedicated to Marinetti, 1914; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148
Giacomo Balla, art links for more biography facts, life stories and famous art images of the Italian artist in Futurism
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