Artist Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space | Christie's

Max Carter, Christie's Head of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York, tells the story of a career-defining Futurist work, made just two years before the artist’s tragic death. On 11 April 1912, the Italian artist Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) published his Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture. He hadn’t yet fully committed himself to being a sculptor and yet, by the end of the following year, he had sculpted a work so complex and forward-thinking that it is now considered to be a cornerstone of Futurism, as well as his masterpiece. Boccioni’s brainwave was to break down blocks of movement and convert them into curves that extended past the shape of a human body, before reassembling them as a forward-marching figure. As the artist himself stated, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space was a ‘synthetic continuity’ of motion; an abstract image of man striding boldly and continuously towards a brave new world, in every direction at once. Find out more: https://ift.tt/2Cf1aS1 -- Subscribe to Christie's YouTube: http://goo.gl/Vmh7Hf Sign up to Christie's Weekly: https://goo.gl/kc8qpV Follow Christie's on: Facebook: https://ift.tt/2elC9Zg Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChristiesInc Instagram: https://ift.tt/2iJ3lGm Pinterest: https://ift.tt/2elCafM