graphite & putty eraser/30x20cm
original source: 'The Times' 06/11/08
This drawing being processed from another newspaper image displaying the particularly ‘photographic’ characteristic of blurring associated with the capturing of a subject in motion, the mark-making technique in this instance aiding the representation of such a surface appearance in the drawing itself.
Perhaps one of the more consistent, concentrated projects in the history of art to wrestle with the problem of the representation of the appearance of movement (difficult even using a fluid medium such as oil paint) was that of various of the artists associated with Futurism, engaging with the increased mechanisation of modern life in the early 20th century, & endeavouring to communicate the action, speed & violence of such, with which they became obsessed. The following two examples each adopt a different technical approach: firstly Boccioni with small, stippled, ‘dynamic’ strokes of the brush, developed from Seurat’s pointillism, that create a blurring effect of the figures in the foreground of the composition, suggesting the urgency of the subject, of the rapid growth of the contemporary metropolis & its sometimes attendant industrial actions &/or popular riots;
Umberto Boccioni 'The City Rises'
oil on canvas/1910
and Balla, who develops a Cubist idiom to suggest a body in motion experienced as a sequence of fleeting, fractured fragments, something in the manner of multiple-exposure photography, used as source material, or successive film stills, referencing another popular modern cultural phenomenon & art-form.
Giacomo Balla 'Speeding Auto'
oil on card/1913
Soundtrack:
Scritti Politti 'White Bread Black Beer'
Boards of Canada 'Geogaddi'
Tori Amos 'Under the Pink'
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