a bit of Balla

 Giacomo Balla, Bankruptcy, 1902

I am struggling away trying to have a draft of the first chapter of my thesis ready for Wednesday, and all I want to do is get out of the house...to the art gallery, to a cafe, more than anything else to take a walk with my camera. For now I am making do by enjoying the gentle stillness and poignancy of some pre-Futurist Giacomo Balla goodness. Isn't it exquisite? Can you belive that it was painted in 1902? It wouldn't look out of place at some trendier-than-thou Flinders Lane art gallery, methinks. Good ol' Balla.

Actually, I am impatient...

...and as such can't mention the fantastic-futurism-news without posting just one image. This is by my favourite futurist of all, Giacomo Balla, and encapsulates the futurists' fascination with and reverence for all aspects of modern technology. Here the romance which usually goes hand in hand with depictions of the moon and stars, is instead afforded to an ordinary streetlight. But, of course, for Balla, the streetlight is anything but ordinary: it is a sign of modernity, technology, and of man's ability to surpass nature.

Giacomo Balla, Streetlight, 1909