Gary Wells

Balla’s ‘Transit of Mercury’ and the Modernist Sun

Abstract

In November 1914, artist and astronomy enthusiast Giacomo Balla observed the transit of Mercury across the face of the sun. He then painted a series of canvases about the event in the abstract and dynamic style of the Italian Futurist movement, of which he was an important member. Balla’s interest in this astronomical event was part of a larger Modernist inclination toward the valorization of new technologies and discoveries, and a celebration of the extended reach of human knowledge. It was also a moment where art began to reimagine and revisit certain astronomical subjects with a new set of expressive and conceptual tools.

This paper will examine Balla’s painting in the context of early twentieth century modern art, particularly in its focus upon the image of the sun. Balla was not alone in his interest in the developments of modern science, and many other artists explored astronomical themes derived from the discoveries of the day. The subject of the sun, with its long and rich history in art, was particularly prominent in the work of these artists. For example, Robert and Sonia Delaunay would place the sun at the symbolic center of their ‘Orphic’ Cubism. Max Ernst would tap into symbolic and scientific associations with the sun in his early Dada and later Surrealist works. And Marcel Duchamp would allude to the alchemical and mystical aspects of astronomical bodies in his cryptic works, which first emerged at the same moment that Balla’s transit paintings were being created.

Biography

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