The four Seasons. Spring, 1940

The four Seasons. Summer, 1940

The four Seasons. Autumn, 1940

The four Seasons. Winter, 1939

Giacomo BALLA TURIN 1871 -ROME 1958

The four Seasons, 1940

Oil on board and tulle

110 x 80 cm (x 4 elements)

Signed lower right: BALLA

Further images

Visualisation

ON A Wall

Provenance

Casa Balla, Rome 1993; Elica Balla, Rome; Private collection, Rome.

Exhibitions

Rome, 1-15 February 1942, Galleria San Marco, Mostra personale di Giacomo Balla, presentation by G. Guida, sala B;

Rome, September-October 1961, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rassegna di Arti Figurative di Roma e del Lazio, sala XLIX;

Rome, May 22-July 30 1986, Galleria Due Ci, Ballrossi. Opere di Balla in rosso;

Parma, May 9-June 30 1987, Galleria Niccoli, Balla. Il colore. 80 opere dal 1896 al 1946;

Rome, February 26-April 2 2017,Galleria Aleandri Arte Moderna, Balla dipinse. Paesaggi e figure 1907-1956, curated by Fabio Benzi;

Bologna, 25 November 2017-11 March 2018, Giacomo Balla. Le quattro stagioni, curated by E. Gigli, Galleria d’Arte Cinquantasei;

Rome, March 21st-June 17th 2019, Giacomo Balla. Dal Futurismo astratto al Futurismo iconico, curated by Fabio Benzi, Rome, Palazzo Merulana - Fondazione Elena e Claudio Cerasi.

Literature

1942, Gi. SI. Giacomo Balla e Renato Brozzi alla Galleria San Marco, n.19, Rome 1942 (Le quattro stagioni);

1961, C. D’Aloisio, catalogue of the exhibition in Vasto Giacomo Balla, at Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome 1961, n.28 (Inverno), n. 29 (Autunno), n. 30 (Estate);

1982, G. Lista, Balla, Edizioni Fonte d’Abisso Modena, n. 961 (Autunno), n. 962 (Primavera), n. 963 (Estate), n. 964 (Inverno);

1986, M. Fagiolo Dell’Arco, catalogue of the exhibition Ballrossi. Opere di Balla in rosso, Rome 1986, Tav. IV (Primavera), Tav. V (Estate), Tav. VI (Autunno), Tav. VII (Inverno);

1986, E. Balla, Con Balla, Multhipla edizioni, Milan, vol. III, pagg. 141, 146;

1987, catalogue of the exhibition Balla. Il colore. 80 opere dal 1896 al 1946, introduction by E. Crispolti, p. 86 (Inverno), p. 87 (Primavera), p. 88 (Estate), p. 89 (Autunno);

2017, Giacomo Balla. Designing the future, Estorick Collection of modern art, Silvana Editoriale, n. 45, pag. 31 (Autunno);

2017, F. Benzi, Balla dipinse. Paesaggi e figure 1907-1956, Officine Vereia MMXVII, fig. 8, pag. 21, (Autunno);

2018, E. Gigli, catalogue of the exhibition Giacomo Balla. Le quattro stagioni, Galleria d’Arte Cinquantasei, Bologna, p. 100 (Inverno), 101 (Primavera), p. 102 (Estate), p. 103 (Autunno);

2019, catalogue of the exhibition, Giacomo Balla. Dal Futurismo astratto al Futurismo iconico, curated by Fabio Benzi, Roma, Palazzo Merulana - Fondazione Elena e Claudio Cerasi, fig. 68, p. 58 (Estate), fig. 69, p. 59 (Autunno), fig. 70, p. 60 (Inverno), fig. 71, p. 61 (Primavera).

Also known as Le Quattro Stagioni in Rosso (The Four Seasons in Red), these four paintings realized by Giacomo Balla between 1939 and ’40 depict the young Giuliana Canuzzi, a friend of his family, and a daughter of the Colonel who lived on the 2^nd floor of Via Oslavia 39B. The beautiful model, little more than 18 years old at the time, is portrayed in four different poses, each time accompanied by different attributes to describe the season represented: flowers on her dress and plum blossom branches for Spring; what looks like a poppy sketched in the lower right-hand corner for Summer, her smooth skin lit by the warm sun; instead, her face is pensive, serious, and somehow, with her right hand holding a fan to depict Autumn; a fur coat thrown over her shoulders, a cheerful laugh, and dark shadows used to describe Winter.

“for the painting of Winter father wanted her to smoke to make the shadows bluer; now he is passionate about bringing out the splendour of the reds enhanced by deep, strong shadows.”

- Elica Balla, 1986[1]

The artist used dramatic bursts of light to accentuate the intensity of the pose. Drawing inspiration from the artistic and fashion photography of those years, like the works of the Italian Artugo Ghergo (Fig. 1), Balla emphasized the diagonal slant of the grazing light. He immersed the model in a warm, spirited, and vital red, and illuminated her with light arriving at an angle from below, emphasizing the modernity of this female figure, a diva of her day.

Fig. 1 - Arturo Ghergo, 1940

A Futurist icon, Giacomo Balla was a tireless Avantgarde proponent. Taking his distance from “canonical” Futurism, Balla had been studying a completely new system of figuration since the ’30s. Drawing from the popular imagery of magazines, comics and TV, Balla was the leading light of a new change and confirmed the shift from an abstract-type of Futurism to what came to be described as an iconic figurative type, eventually abandoning the artistic movement through the creation of an original new language which had nothing in common with other Italian or European experiments.

In 1933, with the painting Primo Carnera, based on a photograph taken of the boxer by Elio Luxardo, and published on the front page of La Gazzetta dello Sport (Fig. 2), Balla anticipated the importance of the media wave, sensing the potential of pop culture (Fig. 3).

Fig. 2 _ Front page of La Gazzetta dello Sport, 30 June 1933.

Photograph taken by Elio Luxardo of Primo Carnera, the reigning world champion

Fig. 3 _ Giacomo Balla, Primo Carnera, 1933, oil on panel and tulle

In this work, Balla used a particular technique which made his desire to immerse himself in the popular culture of rotogravure even more explicit: a kind of dot screen. A pictorial style which simulated the effects of a printer’s dot screen, following a new Avantgarde art concept which antedated American Pop Art. It is interesting to note that almost 20 years earlier, this Turin artist, Roman by adoption, had already heralded one of the founding pillars of the Pop Art of the ’60s.

Fig. 4 _ Roy Lichtenstein, in the ’60s.

A true pioneer whose genius has arguably not yet received the attention it merits in all its nuances. In 1933, and also in the four red works of The Four Seasons, Balla intentionally painted on a layer of tulle so as to reproduce the graininess of the photographs published full-page by magazines and newspapers. In short, what Lichtenstein would do many years late.

The choice of the colour in the Seasons is not accidental. As Maurizio Fagiolo said, “Red was one of his fixations. It is the colour of ‘Boccioni’s Hand’, the forerunner of sculpture. It is the colour of Futurist writing paper. Along with black, it is the colour of those humanitarian illusions of the first decade of the century. Balla in red: symbolizing vitality, energy, revolution even.”[2]The vitality this colour is drenched in is reinforced by the fact that Balla painted the four works following a bad road accident in which he risked his life. The red is that life which has returned, the light, his eternal quest for colours, colours in light.

The year is 1940 and Italy is enduring the tragedy of the second World War. In Balla’s studio “every single object, every particular vision becomes a light source that can be translated with his brushes into a work of art”[3].

The wall of Balla’s living room in Via Oslavia with The Four Seasons

[1] 1986, E. Balla, Con Balla, Multhipla edizioni, Milan, vol. III, pp. 141, 146.

[2] M. Fagiolo Dell’Arco, catalogue of the exhibition Ballrossi. Opere di Balla in Rosso, Rome 1986.

[3] E. Gigli, catalogue of the exhibition Giacomo Balla. Le Quattro Stagioni, Bologna 2018.

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