Newly acquired insights
The Ukrainian painter and theorist Oleksandr Bohomazov occasionally retreats to his property in Boyarka near Kyiv, where, among other things, he writes his treatise The art of painting and the elements, which he completes in 1914. In it, he analyses the interaction between the subject, the artist, the painting and the observer. In the works from 1914-1915 he puts his newly acquired insights into practice, in a futurist style.
Depicting motion
His Tramway, Lvivskaya Street, Kiev (1914), Kreshchatyk (1914) and Locomotive (1915) feature the typically futurist themes from modern urban life, in this case of his city of residence Kyiv. The tramway – the first to be constructed in Tsarist Russia – and the locomotive, which appears to rattle towards the observer with piercing headlights, represent the new industrial age. In these drawings, as with the teeming crowds in the main street in Kreshchatyk, his primary aim is to depict motion.
Important addition
The drawings by Bohomazov constitute an important addition to the works of the Italian futurists in the collection: Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni and Gino Severini.