Head

Mystery envelops this unfinished painting, a truly axial work from the First Portuguese Modernism. Santa-Rita was the mentor, stimulus and motor of the Futurist movement among us. The most emblematic works from his scarce production are known by their photographic reproductions – but none present the radical quality and formal coherence of this work.
The assumption of analytic cubist values is exhibited in the head's deconstruction into triangular and unusually curved facets. The eyes, nose and moustache, a metaphor created by the string instrument, are among the elements taken from cubist practise, as well as the striking dottings in one of the reserves.
The use of strict blacks and greys with a metallic flavour reinforces the machine like character of the figure which is reinforced by the curvilinear dynamics of the planes, in the synthesis between Cubism and Futurism which Marinetti proposed.