Matter Matters: An Unsolved Problem in Boccioni’s Art and Poetics

Abstract

This essay focuses on relevant documentary evidence related to painting technique in Umberto Boccioni’s writings, showing his update to coeval treatises on technique in the context of the market of products for fine arts in Milan. The author shares the results of her research on Futurist written sources related to technique and materials, offering her perspective on Boccioni and his cultural background, gleaned from her work on the Umberto Boccioni papers (GRI, Special Collections). Furthermore, these documents are placed within the context of the painter’s early works in Padova and Milan, showing evidence of his struggles with compositional planning, his trials in the arrangement of colors, and his experimental attitude toward industrially produced painting materials, closely connected to his self-directed apprenticeship on Gaetano Previati’s treatises and other contemporary works. Boccioni’s reading practice is examined, attempting to suggest a possible relationship between theoretical equipment and skill development, between the copybook practice and the assembling/repetitive nature of the practical apprenticeship.