GIACOMO BALLA: artist quotes on Futurism art; with biography and life facts; Balla’s quotations on Futurist painting by the Italian painter; famous art teacher

GIACOMO BALLA (1871 – 1958), his artist quotes and art biography facts: a senior artist and famous painter of the Italian Futurism art movement. Attracted by Marinetti’s explosive ideas Balla threw in his lot with Futurism art style in 1910 and co-signed the definitive version of its Futurist Manifesto. In his paintings Balla created a pictorial depiction of light, movement and speed. Moreover Balla was teaching in Rome two of the younger generation Futurist artists Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini. At the bottom some art links for more biography facts about Balla (ed: Fons Heijnsbroek)

Giacomo Balla: 'Flight of the Swallows', oil painting 1913; Futurism

Balla: ‘Flight of the Swallows’, oil painting 1913

GIACOMO BALLA, 5 artist quotes on painting art and life in Italian Futurism; famous art teacher

- In the evening I study a fair (for his later painting ‘Luna park in Paris’, he made in 1900, fh)… …if you could see the pomp and luxury of the merry-go-round and the stands and booths. Everything is decorated in Baroque-style, all gold and silver; there are mirrors, fabrics, and electric lightning. By night the whole thing is fantastic and rowdy. First of all I shall make a small picture and some drawings for illustrations.
* Balla, source of painter quotes on painting & life: ‘Giacomo Balla (1871 – 1951)’, ed. Fagiolo dell’Arco, exh. catalogue, Galleria Nationale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, 1971 ( great artist and art teacher Giacomo Balla, Italian Futurism style)


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- It (the photo of a moving girl by Jules-Etienne Marey, showed at the 1900 Exposition Universelle and seen there by Balla, fh) will interest artists because, in it, I have made a special study of the way of walking of this girl, and, in fact, I have succeeded in giving the illusion that she is in the process of moving forward.
* Balla, source of painter quotes on painting & life: ‘Lista”, Balla, catalogue raisonné, Edizione Galleria Fonte d’Abisso, Modena, 1982, p. 248 1971 ( great artist and art teacher Giacomo Balla, Italian Futurism style)


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- They (his former pupils / the young Futurist painters Boccioni and Severini, fh) did not want anything to do with me in Paris and they were right: they have gone much further than I, but I will work and I too will progress.
* Balla, source of painter quotes on painting & life: a letter; Balla was quoted by Umberto Boccioni to Gino Severini, Jan. 1913; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 248 1971 ( great artist and art teacher Giacomo Balla, Italian Futurism style)


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- Use materials (with materials Balla means here clothes, fh) with forceful MUSCULAR colours – the reddest of reds, the most purple of purples, the greenest of greens, intense yellows, orange, vermillion – ans SKELETON tones of white, grey and black.
* Balla, source of painter quotes on painting & life: unpublished ‘Futurist Manifesto of Men’s clothing’, Balla, dedicated to Marinetti, 1914; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148 1971 ( great artist and art teacher Giacomo Balla, Italian Futurism style)


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- And we must invent dynamic designs to go with them and express them in equally dynamic shapes: triangles, cones, spirals, ellipses, circles, etc.
* Balla, source of painter quotes on painting & life: unpublished ‘Futurist Manifesto of Men’s clothing’, Balla, dedicated to Marinetti, 1914; as quoted in “Futurism”, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 148 1971 ( great artist and art teacher Giacomo Balla, Italian Futurism style)


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Giacomo Balla, art links for biography facts of the famous Italian painter, about his life and paintings in Futurism

* information on life and creating his painting art in Futurism by the famous Italian painter Giacomo Balla, on Wikipedia

* many pictures of Giacomo Balla’s futuristic painting art, on Google

* short biography of Italian artist Giacomo Balla creating in Futurism style, by Guggenheim museum