Plastic Forms of a Horse

Painted in 1914 by Umberto Boccioni, this burst of color comes from the heart of Italian Futurism, a movement that celebrated speed, machines, and the rush of modern living. The subject is a horse, though it hides well among the jagged shapes and bright patches of red, yellow, blue, and green. Rather than showing the animal standing calmly, Boccioni pulls it apart into fragments that seem to gallop right off the canvas. The whole thing feels less like a portrait and more like the sensation of a horse charging forward.

For the Futurists, nothing in the world ever stood truly still, so Boccioni chased motion itself instead of a single frozen pose. The forms crash and lean into one another, humming with a nervous kind of energy. Boccioni was actually more famous as a sculptor, and that background shows here, since the shapes look solid and chiseled rather than painted flat. His story ended too soon, as he died in 1916 from a fall during military training, silencing one of the most daring minds of his generation.