(Turin 1871–1958 Rome)
Linea di velocità + paesaggio, c. 1917, signed; stamps and labels on the reverse, coloured and tempera painted paper collage on cardboard, 15 x 30 cm, framed

This work is registered in the Archivio Gigli, Rome under no. 2016–679 and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity.

Provenance:
Casa Balla, Rome (labels on the reverse)
Villoresi Collection, Rome
Galleria Blu, Milan (label on the reverse)
Galleria Fonte d’Abisso, Milan (label on the reverse)
European Private Collection

Exhibited:
Milan, Archivi Futuristi, Galleria Fonte d’Abisso Arte, 7 April–14 July 1990, exh. cat. p. 25, no. 4 with ill. (label on the reverse)

Literature:
E. Gigli, Giacomo Balla. Coloratissimo e luminosissimo, Edizioni Cinquantasei, Bologna 2013, p. 172, no. 56 with ill.

From the period of the Great War (perhaps also motivated by a lack of primary materials for painting), Balla experimented with a new technique: the collage of coloured paper. The technique lends itself to creating works of an absolutely “abstract” tone, with decisive à-plat shapes, as can be seen in this collage. It is made using only pieces of paper, some already coloured, others coloured by Balla and then assembled to construct this colourful composition of various elements: the bright paper shapes used in the collage are therefore connected to the very operation of invention and of the final effect itself.
In particular, this collage represents the union of two themes very dear to Balla: the line of speed is superimposed over the landscape. Always looking for synthesis, the painter develops the pictorial theme through countless analyses. Starting with various specific studies (relative motion, the flight of swallows, the interpenetration of light, the dynamism of the car) he arrives at the “line of speed”, which he himself defines as “the fundamental basis of my thought”. Balla develops this research across two notebooks containing more than 55 studies, coming to combine it with other elements that were important to him such as the vortex, the landscape and sound...
Balla’s work, which would be defined as “Futurist abstraction”, shows that abstraction can only occur out of the real data of nature compounded by movement: line of speed + landscape. The union of the blue of the sky with the green of the landscape at the moment of the car’s passing is realised in the line of speed in this collage of coloured paper originating from Casa Balla.
Elena Gigli