States of Mind I: The Farewells is a seminal oil on canvas painting created by Umberto Boccioni in 1911. This work stands as the first canvas in his important triptych exploring the psychological and physical experience of modern travel. As a pivotal figure in Italian Futurism, Boccioni sought to capture the dynamism, speed, and sensory overload inherent in the machine age. The piece moves beyond simple representation, using fractured forms and intense, non-objective color to express internal emotional states accompanying separation and departure, a theme deeply tied to the movement and anxiety of the early twentieth century.
Boccioni utilized a highly fragmented visual language, where the outlines of a locomotive and fleeting human figures merge into energetic, curved lines, suggesting velocity and sound. The pervasive repetition of forms and rhythmic curves communicate the sensation of kinetic flow, dissolving solid objects into vortices of color and light. This methodology, rooted in Divisionist techniques but applied to capture "universal dynamism," was central to Boccioni’s revolutionary vision. The canvas emphasizes the simultaneous perceptions experienced at a railway station: the noise, the emotional chaos of goodbye, and the physical force of the machine—aiming to fuse the external environment with the subjective feeling of the farewell.
Completed in 1911, this canvas marks a radical moment in early modernist art, crystallizing the Futurist ambition to depict simultaneity. Today, this iconic piece is housed in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Due to the historical significance of the work and the artist’s prominence, high-quality States of Mind I: The Farewells prints remain popular with collectors and students of art history, though the original remains an essential record of the Italian avant-garde. While the artwork itself is not in the public domain, its profound influence continues to shape contemporary understandings of motion and abstract expression.
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