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Giacomo Balla, Numbers in Love (Numeri innamorati), 1920–23 (detail)Giacomo Balla, Numbers in Love (Numeri innamorati), 1920–23. Oil on canvas, 77 x 55 cm. MART, Museo d’arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy, VAF–Stiftung © 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/SIAE, Rome. Photo: © MART, Archivio Fotografico -
Ivo Pannaggi, Speeding Train (Treno in corsa), 1922 (detail)Ivo Pannaggi, Speeding Train (Treno in corsa), 1922. Oil on canvas, 100 x 120 cm. Fondazione Carima–Museo Palazzo Ricci, Macerata, Italy.
Photo: Courtesy Fondazione Cassa di risparmio della Provincia di Macerata -
Benedetta (Benedetta Cappa Marinetti), Speeding Motorboat (Velocità di motoscafo), 1923–24 (detail)Benedetta (Benedetta Cappa Marinetti), Speeding Motorboat (Velocità di motoscafo), 1923–24. Oil on canvas, 70 x 100 cm. Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma Capitale © Benedetta Cappa Marinetti, used by permission of Vittoria Marinetti and Luce Marinetti’s heirs. Photo: Archivio Fotografico Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Roma Capitale © Roma CapitaleSpeeding Motorboat
Benedetta, a painter and author of words-in-freedom poetry and experimental novels, was a major proponent of the later phase of the movement, known as Second Futurism. Born into an intellectual family in Rome, she was immersed in the Futurist milieu from a young age: she was friends with the artist Růžena Zátková, studied with Giacomo Balla, and later married F. T. Marinetti. Speeding Motorboat visualizes speed, a favorite Futurist theme. The fractured forms of the sea expand in an ever-widening rhythmic pattern contributing to the impression of a boat rapidly slicing through water and disappearing into the distance. The painting merges the mechanical idiom the Futurists employed in the 1920s with Benedetta’s inclination toward curvilinear forms and a light palette. A ceramic tile and plate based on this image were also produced, in keeping with the Futurists’ desire to create a “total work of art” that encompassed various mediums.
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Ugo Pozzo, Cosmopolis (Cosmopoli), 1925 (detail)Ugo Pozzo, Cosmopolis (Cosmopoli), 1925. Oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm. Private collection, By permission of heirs of the artist. Photo: Courtesy Pozzo Heirs -
Fedele Azari, Flight Freed (Perspectives in Flight) (Volo liberato [Prospettive in volo]), 1926 (detail)Fedele Azari, Flight Freed (Perspectives in Flight) (Volo liberato [Prospettive in volo]), 1926. Oil on canvas, 120 x 80.5 cm. Private collection. Photo: Courtesy Skira -
Fillia (Luigi Colombo), Mechanical Landscape (Paesaggio meccanico), 1926–27 (detail)Fillia (Luigi Colombo), Mechanical Landscape (Paesaggio meccanico), 1926–27. Oil on panel, 53 x 44 cm. Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e contemporanea, Rome. Photo: Giuseppe Schiavinotto, Soprintendenza alla Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e contemporanea, Courtesy Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali
Following World War I, Futurism gained new members and assumed different formal qualities, including those of arte meccanica (machine aesthetics). While mechanized figures and forms had appeared earlier (in the art of Fortunato Depero, for example), Ivo Pannaggi and Vinicio Paladini articulated the principles of this idiom in their 1922 “Manifesto of Futurist Mechanical Art.” Enrico Prampolini also adopted a mechanical language at this time, and he subsequently expanded and signed the manifesto, publishing it in his journal Noi in 1923.
Pannaggi’s Speeding Train (1922) demonstrates the Futurists’ sustained interest in the locomotive as a symbol of modernity, motion, and the machine. The painting depicts a powerful train barreling toward the viewer at a diagonal angle. Speeding Train suggests the total sensory experience of observing the daily trains passing through the small coastal towns along the Adriatic (the blur of the moving cars, the clamorous noise of the motor, the ear-splitting scream of the whistle).
Later, Pannaggi’s interest in machine aesthetics led him to integrate Constructivist elements such as beams, cubes, cylinders, and three-dimensional letters into his work. In 1932–33 he attended the Bauhaus in Germany, the only Futurist aside from Nicolaj Diulgheroff to do so.