The Futuristic Flight over Vienna

Flight over Vienna (Volo su Vienna) was painted to celebrate the historic aviation feat of August 9, 1918 when, just a few months after the end of the Great War, eight Italian airplanes flew over the Austrian capital dropping flyers.

Gabriele D'Annunzio was also on board.

The composition, signed by Gauro Ambrosi and dated 1933, was exhibited the same year in Rome at the first National Exhibition of Futurist Art, where it was admired by Victor Emmanuel III who wanted to buy it for his own collection.

A correspondent for the Turin newspaper Popolo, who was at the exhibition, said this about the work: "A vision of Gabriele D'Annunzio's squadron overlooking the Austrian capital, flooded with tricolor leaflets".

The work shows Ambrosi's adhesion to Futurism, which he had already endorsed in 1931 in an open letter to Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Italian founder of the futurist movement.

Ambrosi adhered in particular to Futurist aeropainting, which became popular in the years following World War I.

Aeropainting expressed the sensation of flight in art form.

The dynamic perspectives of flight were enhanced with respect to those on land.

In 1929, the Manifesto of Futurist Aeropainting (Manifesto dell'Aeropittura futurista) was published, which specified the elements and characteristics of aeropainting.

The Manifesto read: "We futurists declare that … the perspectives of flight represent an absolutely new reality far removed from the traditional reality of perspectives from land."

Gauro Ambrosi devoted himself mainly to aeropainting.

Flight over Vienna is one of his most famous works.