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Lot Essay
Executed in 1912, Simultaneità - La donna al balcone (study) is a highly finished drawing for one of the finest of Carrà's early Futurist paintings. The works from this period reveal Carrà beginning to develop his own unique visual idiom. Impregnating Cubism with a dynamism of motion in order to create a true Futurist style, Carrà was now able to convey movement through a picture, adding time as a fourth represented dimension where Cubism had limited itself to three. The degree of care he has taken in this study gives some indication of the importance he attached to his innovations during this period.
Even after his initial participation in the Futurist movement, Carrà had retained much of the Divisionist style that had previously developed in his painting. However, in order to broaden his horizons, he was sent to Paris in 1911 by Filippo Marinetti, the founder and leader of the movement. This trip was intended as a means of acquainting the Futurists with the French avant garde - and vice versa. Indeed, Paris made more of an impact on the Futurists than the Futurists on Paris, and Carrà would return the next year, and many times after. Cubism, which was still an absolute visual revolution, kindled in Carrà an intense interest in the potentials of representation. However, rather than merely become a Cubist, Carrà adapted Cubism's innovations and bent them to his own uses. Simultaneità - La donna al balcone (study) shows a vague Cubist flavour, especially in its use of the contrast between the near subject and the space stretching behind it. This is reminiscent of the compositional explorations of the Cubists, who often presented the viewer with a still life in the foreground, with a background punctuated by a window or door, adding another dimension to the space. However, Carrà gives a sense of movement, of motion, that has little to do with the still life paintings and portraits being produced by Braque and Picasso.
There is also a distinctly sensual feel to Simultaneità - La donna al balcone (study), with the woman's body being depicted, despite the Futurist style, in a manner that accentuates the flesh and posture. Carrà manages, despite the lack of direct figurative style, to convey a feeling of nakedness to the lady, creating a thinly veiled yet provoking image of a nude on a highly visible balcony, the city spread below her. It is an interesting coincidence that this study, and the painting after it, were executed in the same year that Duchamp painted his controversial Nude Descending a Staircase. For Carrà, Simultaneità - La donna al balcone marked a distinct change of subject matter, as he was avoiding political scenes, which hitherto had featured in his most important works. Here instead, he has chosen a more mundane scene, a woman on a balcony, and it is the Futurist method of execution which itself has become a radical content in its own right.
Even after his initial participation in the Futurist movement, Carrà had retained much of the Divisionist style that had previously developed in his painting. However, in order to broaden his horizons, he was sent to Paris in 1911 by Filippo Marinetti, the founder and leader of the movement. This trip was intended as a means of acquainting the Futurists with the French avant garde - and vice versa. Indeed, Paris made more of an impact on the Futurists than the Futurists on Paris, and Carrà would return the next year, and many times after. Cubism, which was still an absolute visual revolution, kindled in Carrà an intense interest in the potentials of representation. However, rather than merely become a Cubist, Carrà adapted Cubism's innovations and bent them to his own uses. Simultaneità - La donna al balcone (study) shows a vague Cubist flavour, especially in its use of the contrast between the near subject and the space stretching behind it. This is reminiscent of the compositional explorations of the Cubists, who often presented the viewer with a still life in the foreground, with a background punctuated by a window or door, adding another dimension to the space. However, Carrà gives a sense of movement, of motion, that has little to do with the still life paintings and portraits being produced by Braque and Picasso.
There is also a distinctly sensual feel to Simultaneità - La donna al balcone (study), with the woman's body being depicted, despite the Futurist style, in a manner that accentuates the flesh and posture. Carrà manages, despite the lack of direct figurative style, to convey a feeling of nakedness to the lady, creating a thinly veiled yet provoking image of a nude on a highly visible balcony, the city spread below her. It is an interesting coincidence that this study, and the painting after it, were executed in the same year that Duchamp painted his controversial Nude Descending a Staircase. For Carrà, Simultaneità - La donna al balcone marked a distinct change of subject matter, as he was avoiding political scenes, which hitherto had featured in his most important works. Here instead, he has chosen a more mundane scene, a woman on a balcony, and it is the Futurist method of execution which itself has become a radical content in its own right.