Giacomo Balla (18 July 1871 – 1 March 1958) was an Italian painter, art teacher and poet best known as a key proponent of Futurism. In his paintings, he depicted light, movement and speed.
In Balla’s painting, a tiny dachshund is pacing the pavement, the number of its wobbling ears and paws radically exceeding their regular quantity. By painting dozens of legs, tails, and leashes, Balla managed to convey a feverish movement of a short-legged creature struggling to keep up with its owner.
Giacomo Balla was an Italian artist and founding member of the Futurist movement in painting. Balla had little formal art training, having attended briefly an academy in Turin.
Balla's 1909 painting The Street Light typifies his exploration of light, atmosphere, and motion. Balla's most famous works, such as his 1912 Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash where efforts to express movement – and thus the passage of time – through the medium of painting.
Explore Giacomo Balla, a pioneer of Italian Futurism, known for his dynamic use of color, motion, and light to capture modern energy.
Balla was part of a second generation of Divisionists — and much influenced by the likes of Angelo Morbelli and Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo from the first. What set him apart from most other members of the group was a concern for humanitarian issues.
From this moment on, Balla starts innovative experimentations in a variety of artistic disciplines; from painting to graphic design, and from fashion to theatre. His house, at first in Parioli...