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| Image | Sale date | Auction house | Location | Sale name | Lot No. | Estimate | Price Sold | Condition | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jun 4, 2019 | Dorotheum | Vienna | Modern Art | 12 | $****** - ****** | Forze spaziali |
Works on Paper
186.5 x 107 cm (73.43 x 42.13 in)
tempera on cardboard
signed and titled on the reverse
Casa Balla, Rome, Agenda no. 594
Valentina Orsini Collection, Rome 1969
European Private Collection
Zurich, Giacomo Balla-Werke von 1912 bis 1928, Turscke & Turscke Galerie, 5 October – 16 November 1985, exh. cat. no. 32, p. 73 with ill.
New York, Works by Giacomo Balla from 1905 to 1928, curated by
M. Fagiolo dell’Arco, Kouros Gallery, 15 March – 24 April 1986, exh. cat. no. 37, p. 77 with ill.
Edinburgh, Balla The Futurist, curated by M. Fagiolo dell’Arco, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 6 June – 19 July 1987; London, Riverside Studios; Oxford, Museum of Modern Art, exh. cat. p. 128 with ill.
AA. VV., Archivi dei Futurismo, De Luca Editore, Rome 1962, p. 137 with ill. no. 339
M. Fagiolo dell’ Arco, Futur-Balla. La vita e le opere, Electa, Milan 1992, p. 145 with ill. no. 37
titled and signed on the reverse, tempera, pastel, oil on natural canvas, 186.5 x 107 cm, framed
We are grateful to Elena Gigli for the assistance with cataloging this work
Provenance:
Private Collection, Perugia 1997
Tornabuoni Arte, Florence
Galleria Arte Centro, Milan
European Private Collection
Exhibited:
Padua, Giacomo Balla 1895-1911, Verso il Futurismo, curated by M. Fagiolo dell'Arco, Palazzo Zabarella, 14 March - 28 June 1998, exh. cat. p. 55, with ill. no. 7
Florence, Maestri Contemporanei. Antologia scelta, 1999, Tornabuoni Arte, December 1998, exh. cat. p. 25 with ill.
In 1915 Milan Balla and Depero published the manifesto "The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe", a proposal born out of a provocation which has an impact on every aspect of experience and established a concept of shapes and colors. This proposal envisions a total transformation of the environment: from furniture to fashion, from music to dance, from advertising to the design of objects. "
The Manifesto of the Futurist Reconstruction would forever change the direction of the Futurist movement, and it will be reconstructive, laborious and far from the first phase of futurism.
We Futurists, Balla and Depero, seek to make this total fusion in order to reconstruct the universe by making it more joyful, in other words by an integral recreation. We want to give flesh and bones to the invisible, the impalpable, the imponderable, the imperceptible. We want to set abstract concepts for all forms and elements of the universe, and then we will combine them according to the caprice of our inspiration. (Manifesto of the Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe)
Indeed, Balla himself would begin with the Löwestein house in Dusseldorf in 1912 and with the first participation in a public building - Bal Tik Tak in Rome in 1921. He would develop studies for decorating interiors, projects for furniture and patterns for clothing. They are all involved in creative colors and shapes, perfect for creating beauty and enlivening daily life. In an interview with Enrico Santamaria in 1920, he stated that, "It is because our art is essentially decorative. This type of art brings much closer to the masses and can be understood and felt by all ".
In 1904 Balla moved to Rome with his wife and his wife at 6 o'clock via Parioli. Villa Borghese, where he often went for long walks in search of hidden places or views, reoccurs many times in his works from this period.
Primavera a Villa Borghese "is a piece of the puzzle for reconstructing
Giacomo Balla's landscape painting which developed in three stages: 1) his youthful studies in the Art Nouveau style; 2) his Futurist experience;
3) his recent theory of the Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe [...] Two batons in lively colors open and close the canvas, which is painted in the Japanese kakejiku style and, in this way, Balla revisits a great tradition of the period between the centuries. In terms of the painting itself, it presents [...] two abstract stripes at the top and one abstract stripe at the bottom which is as tall as the others. They enclose three sinuously curved trees which frame the field with trees in front of his house, a foreground in which nature transforms into organic-geometric shapes (very similar to Kandinsky's experimentation).
Ultimately, a point of arrival for all pre-futurist and futurist research in terms of the Futurist Recons-truction of the Universe. "(M. Fagiolo Dell'Arco, Maestri Contemporanei, Antologia scelta 1999, Tornabuoni Arte, Florence 1999, p. 24)
If the "youthful studies in art nouveau" are recognisable in the choice of fabric backing, the wooden strips placed at the top and bottom edges with their vibrant colors and sculptural shapes re-evoke an idea of the dynamism of futurism and confirm the artist's adhesion to the theory of the Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe. This is further evidenced by the intention to overcome the two-dimensional space of the painting.
The influence of Japanese art is therefore moreover in the format of the work, with its vertical orientation, and thus in the choice of subject and in the way the natural element is portrayed. The pictorial rendering of nature is, in fact, indebted to the Japanese nihonga technique which uses Indian ink. This technique allows for a very wide modulation of tone due to the dilution of the ink and it searches for a simplification and stylization of natural forms by eliminating the superfluous. It is in common with Futurism that it embraces the essence of natural subjects.
Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco to present an exhibition in Padua, which is the artist's pre-futurist period, Elena Gigli asserted that:
Villa Borghese presented the same thing for Balla as Montagne Sainte Victoire did for Paul Cézanne.
A subject, therefore, that the artist experimented with in many of his early works, attracted by the truth of nature in the leaves of a tree, in the trickle of water falling into the pool of a fountain or in the shadows of tree trunks which frame the sky's dazzling light.
"Villa Borghese represented the same thing for Balla as Montagne Sainte Victoire did for Paul Cézanne."
E. Gigli
