I picked two paintings from the Palazzo Reale exhibition on the work of Umberto Boccioni. In my opinion, these two paintings, “Three Women” and “Materia,” are pivotal moments in Boccioni’s evolution into a Futurist painter.
In the first painting, “Three Women,” Boccioni starts to play with movement in the image through his painting methods. You can see the short and rapid brush strokes that energize and bring to life the light in the painting. This is one of the first works of his that begins to show signs of moving towards a more abstracted way of painting. The caption next to the painting describe it as “extraordinary luminous energy” with “glowing colors.”
In the second painting, that stood out to me, “Materia,” Boccioni really embraced the abstracted form. This is a painting of his mother, which used as subject material a lot. This painting again, reference light. There is an aura of light that surround his mother in the painting. Most of the painting uses darker colors, but then there is a bright pop of light around her head. The background of the painting seems to resemble a factory and city life. This really speaks to the Futurist Manifesto, which is enthralled with mechanical and industrial processes.