Interest and appreciation of machinery was clearly in the air in the early
decades of the 20th century. For a group of young Italian
``Futurist''
artists, the progress offered by machinery epitomized their increasing
fascination with dynamic speed and motion. Though they translated this
idea of progress into a frenetic exultation of the glory of war and the
destruction of museums, their visual understanding of motion remained
exciting.
The Italian Futurists, like the members of Die Brücke in Germany, aimed to
free art from all its historical restraints and celebrate the new beauty
of the modern age.
Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916),
Gino Severini (1883-1966), and
Giacomo Balla (1871-1958),
who all joined Futurism in 1910, wanted to express the onrush of events
in the world with pictures of motion, dynamism, and power.
In Street Noises Invade the House
(1911; 100 x 107 cm (39 1/4 x 42 in)),
Boccioni attempts to give this sensation and succeeds remarkably well.
Noise becomes something seen, something literally invasive of privacy.
Boccioni said of the picture: ``all life and the noises of the street
rush in at the same time as the movement and the reality of the objects
outside.''
The surging incoherence of the forms is both chaotic and ordered.