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 Patriotic Celebration - Carlo Carra

free word painting 1914 papier colle - 15.12 x 11.75 inches


Carlo Carrà
Interventionist Demonstration, 1914
Tempera and collage on cardboard, 38.5 x 30 cm about 15x12 inches

Always one of my personal favorites, Carra is clearly following the cubist painterly style in this collage poem the composition moves outward from center in concentric circles and with a number of rays or lines of force moving out from this center giving an impression of an explosion of a loud noise or sound. The words as well eminate from this same center for the most part helping to emphisize the feeling of expansion from a center. The several dark, blackish zones in the center also give an effective sence of spacial depth -  a deep void -  from which the 'sound' is coming and the space gradually flattening out toward the edges. This sort of visual 'poem' would later develop into what became known as concrete poetry. There are a lot of fasinating sound representations in this poem such as TRRRRRRR and TRrrrrrrrrrr, SSOOOOOOO, BBBRRRRRR, etc.

The composition was inspired by Carrà's sighting of leaflets dropped from an airplane as they fluttered down over the Piazza del Duomo.