'', 1909–10
Early portraits and landscapes From 1902 to 1910, Boccioni focused initially on drawings, then sketched and painted portraits – with his mother as a frequent model. He also painted landscapes – often including the arrival of industrialization, trains and factories for example. During this period, he weaves between
Pointillism and
Impressionism, and the influence of Giacomo Balla, and
Divisionism techniques are evident in early paintings (although later largely abandoned).
The Morning (1909) was noted for "the bold and youthful violence of hues" and as "a daring exercise in luminosity." His 1909–10
Three Women, which portrays his mother and sister, and longtime lover Ines at center, was cited as expressing great emotion – strength, melancholy and love.
Development of Futurism '', 1910 Boccioni worked for nearly a year on
La città sale or
The City Rises, 1910, a huge (2m by 3m) painting, which is considered his turning point into Futurism. "I attempted a great synthesis of labor, light and movement" he wrote to a friend. Upon its exhibition in
Milan in May 1911, the painting attracted numerous reviews, mostly admiring. By 1912 it had become a headline painting for the exhibition traveling Europe, the introduction to Futurism. It was sold to the great pianist,
Ferruccio Busoni for 4,000 lire that year, and today is frequently on prominent display at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the entrance to the paintings department. '', 1911
La risata (1911,
The Laugh) is considered Boccioni's first truly Futurist work. He had fully parted with Divisionism, and now focused on the sensations derived from his observation of modern life. Its public reception was quite negative, compared unfavorably with
Three Women, and it was defaced by a visitor, running his fingers through the still fresh paint. Subsequent criticism became more positive, with some considering the painting a response to Cubism. It was purchased by Albert Borchardt, a German collector who acquired 20 Futurist works exhibited in
Berlin, including
The Street Enters the House (1911) which depicts a woman on a balcony overlooking a busy street. Today the former also is owned by the Museum of Modern Art, and the latter by the
Sprengel Museum in
Hanover.
, 1911 , 1913 Boccioni spent much of 1911 working on a trilogy of paintings titled "''Stati d'animo
" ("States of Mind
"), which he said expressed departure and arrival at a railroad station – The Farewells
, Those Who Go
, and Those Who Stay''. All three paintings were originally purchased by Marinetti, until
Nelson Rockefeller acquired them from his widow and later donated them to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. '', 1916 Beginning in 1912, with
Elasticità or
Elasticity, depicting the pure energy of a horse, captured with intense chromaticism, he completed a series of Dynamist paintings:
Dinamismo di un corpo umano (
Human Body),
ciclista (
Cyclist),
Foot-baller, and by 1914
Dinamismo plastico: cavallo + caseggiato (
Plastic Dynamism: Horse + Houses). While continuing this focus, he revived his previous interest in portraiture. Beginning with ''L'antigrazioso
(The antigraceful
) in 1912 and continuing with I selciatori
(The Street Pavers
) and Il bevitore
(The Drinker'') both in 1914. In 1914 Boccioni published his book,
Pittura, scultura futuriste (
Futurist Painting and Sculpture), which caused a rift between himself and some of his Futurist comrades. As a result, perhaps, he abandoned his exploration of Dynamism, and instead sought further decomposition of a subject by means of colour. With
Horizontal Volumes in 1915 and the
Portrait of Ferruccio Busoni in 1916, he completed a full return to figurative painting. Perhaps fittingly, this last painting was a portrait of the maestro who purchased his first Futurist work,
The City Rises. Between 1906 and 1915 his mother Cecilia Forlani appeared as a key figure in at least forty-five of his works, in various media.
Sculpture '', 1913 , and exhibited at
Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin 1913,
Herwarth Walden, titled
Spiralförmige ausdehnung von muskeln in bewegung. Published 1913 catalogue by
Der Sturm in Berlin The writing of his (
Technical manifesto of Futurist sculpture), published on 11 April 1912, was Boccioni's intellectual and physical launch into sculpture; he had begun working in sculpture in the previous year. By the end of 1913 he had completed what is considered his masterpiece,
Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio (
Unique Forms of Continuity in Space), in wax. His goal for the work was to depict a "synthetic continuity" of motion, instead of an "analytical discontinuity" that he saw in such artists as
František Kupka and
Marcel Duchamp. During his life, the work only existed as a plaster cast. It was first cast in bronze in 1931. This sculpture has been the subject of extensive commentary, and in 1998 it was selected as the image to be engraved on the back of the
Italian 20-cent euro coin. Soon after Boccioni's death in 1916 (and after a memorial exhibition was held in Milan), his family entrusted them temporarily to a fellow sculptor,
Piero da Verona; da Verona then requested that his assistant place them in the local rubbish-dump. Marinetti's outraged account of the destruction of the sculptures was slightly different; in his memoirs, he stated that the sculptures were destroyed by workmen to clear the room the "envious passéist narrow-minded sculptor" had placed them. Thus, much of his experimental work from late 1912 to 1913 was destroyed, including pieces relating to contemporaneous paintings, which are known only through photographs. One of the few surviving pieces is the
Antigrazioso (
Anti-Graceful, also called
The Mother). In 2019, the
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art held an exhibition reconstructing several of the destroyed sculptures. ==Publications==