Antigraceful

The Antigrazioso is one of the artistic peaks achieved by the Futurist painter and sculptor Umberto Boccioni (Reggio Calabria, 1882 – Verona, 1916) in his effort to force the limits of conventional vision into a wholly modern dimension. It heralds a new category of vision developed primarily in portraits designed to overturn the age-old ambition of resemblance and instead to convey reality through the suggestion of movement. Once owned by Margherita Sarfatti, who may have been the subject, the portrait is developed on the diagonal and built up in superimposed layers of leaden, metallic browns and reds.